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A Review EssayPart 1: Chinese Influence and the Beginnings of Daito-ryu

The last column was actually an extended review of several books on kotodama, thought to be one aspect of aikido. Since then, another book has appeared and this, too, is immensely relevant to aikido and especially to aikido training. Ellis Amdur's Hidden in Plain Sight has been long awaited and even in the short time since its publication, has spawned much discussion in Internet forums, mostly of a laudatory, even adulatory, nature. However, Mr Amdur has done his readers the honor of producing a book that requires very careful study. Of course, it does not deserve to be read once, admired, and then put away. Consequently, a book review that is merely a simple description of the book's contents does not really do justice to the vast amount of research and original thought that Mr Amdur has put into the work. The issues with which Mr Amdur deals in his book are germane to those I have been discussing in these columns, so it seemed best to include a review here. Accordingly, this column presents a detailed critical review of the book and a general discussion of the many issues raised, the model being the lengthy review essays in the Journal of Asian Studies or the New York Review of Books. Some of the background for the opinions expressed in this review can be found in the final section, entitled, Reading, which is considerably longer than the reading lists added to the other columns.

Of course, one, very important, response to the book should be for the reader to go and seek out a teacher who possesses the skills and power discussed therein and who is also capable of showing and explaining what he/she knows. For this reviewer, one of the most crucial issues relating to Mr Amdur's book is the development of a training methodology, which will furnish a common core of concepts that will enable individuals to recognize the goals and also provide a common framework for achieving these. Unfortunately, the discussions in Mr Amdur's book should indicate that for aikido, at least, this is no easy matter. In any case, Mr Amdur has not written a technical manual. Rather, he has written a book that explores the broad foundations on which aikido technical manuals should really rest.

So, like the columns, this review essay is targeted at the thoughtful practitioner of aikido, who takes training very seriously and cares very much about the art, but who also ponders the important questions: questions raised both by the type of training actually practiced by the ‘sensei' and offered in the dojo, and also by the questions raised in this and other Internet forums about the ‘efficacy' of the art. Is there something missing, either that should have been there all along, or that should be practiced additionally, in order to make the aikido training more ‘efficacious', whatever this might mean?

NOTE: (1) In this review, all Japanese names follow the traditional Japanese order, with the family name first. Thus, it is ‘Ueshiba Morihei' and not ‘Morihei Ueshiba'.

NOTE: (2) Since there was more to discuss in the book than I expected, I have split this review into parts. The first part deals with Amdur's treatment of Chinese influence on Japanese martial arts, which is followed by some preliminary discussion of Daito-ryu.

NOTE: (3) Ellis Amdur and I have been friends since we met at Stanley Pranin's first Aiki Expo in 2002. In fact, a major spur to writing these Transmission Inheritance and Emulation columns was his earlier book, Dueling with O Sensei. This book confirmed my own experience of living here in Japan: it showed that the general distinction in aikido between omote and ura was actually a much deeper division, also with Chinese antecedents, and one that permeates the entire culture, not merely the small segment experienced in the dojo. So this review reveals a certain bias: I think that Ellis and I are very much on the same page in respect of Japan and its culture and I generally agree with much of what he states in Hidden in Plain Sight (HIPS). Actually, I think the book is a brilliant piece of work and I am honored to be mentioned in his acknowledgments. So this review should be taken as an extended search for greater rigor. Finally, I imply no disrespect whatever to Ellis, when I use the dry academic style in this column, common with articles and reviews, and refer to a good friend simply by his surname.

Background
Ellis Amdur is one of a small group of ‘old Japan hands'. Following in a very distinguished tradition, he went to Japan on a quest for the Japanese martial arts. He spent a total of 13 years there, studying various classical and modern arts, including aikido, after which he returned to the United States. A psychologist by training, Amdur is a specialist in rather extreme forms of conflict resolution, as a glance at his website www.edgework/info will show. As well as technical books and monographs on crisis resolution, he has written many articles on Japanese martial arts and some of these have been published as books.

With his first book, Dueling with O Sensei (DOS), Amdur established a reputation as an iconoclast. This book really did destroy some very hallowed images of aikido Founder, Ueshiba Morihei, because it presented a rather different picture from the saintly figure that was displayed in the official accounts and biographies. DOS was followed by a more specialized work, The Old School (TOS). This was specialized in the sense that it dealt with koryu: more traditional arts, which are not so well known as modern arts like judo and aikido and which are practiced by far fewer people. Though he avows not currently to practice the art, aikido in fact appears to have a major fascination for Amdur, for with HIPS he has returned to aikido and examines issues relating to this art that were not considered in such detail in DOS or TOS. Of course, on one level Amdur is poking some fun at the aikido world; on another level he is raising some very important questions.

No Smoke, but Plenty of Mirrors
In his Acknowledgments (HIPS, p. 9), Amdur explains what kind of book he has not written.

"I am neither a researcher nor a historian. I am, instead, simply a man who pays attention, who can often see a larger pattern among small bits of evidence, creating speculations that, frequently, research later establishes as true. This is not so strange, really. Speculation does not mean fantasy—it comes from a root word, speculum, that means, "mirror." Therefore, to speculate is to hold up a mirror to something so that we can see it—at least part of it—from a different angle.

This book will not, therefore, follow academic standards."

So HIPS is not intended to be an academic work, though there are plenty of footnotes. On the other hand, neither is the work a piece of martial arts journalism, or a work of purely speculative musings, even in the older sense in which Amdur has used the term. Of course, the speculation, with or without the use of mirrors, needs to be sufficiently grounded in facts and the arguments need to be plausible initially, then persuasive and, ultimately, compelling and demanding of assent. So we may ask: does HIPS succeed as a work of rhetoric, understood in the broadest sense of the term?

Ten Questions
The core of Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power is a substantial reworking of several articles originally published online by Stanley Pranin in Aikido Journal. The articles led to a lively but informed discussion; in fact, the discussion was a model for the pursuit of knowledge via Internet forums. As the subtitle of the book implies, the central issues discussed all relate to the general problem of the teaching, learning and transmission of a certain cluster of skills, allegedly found in all martial arts, but especially with respect to aikido, and with the main focus firmly fixed on the Founder, Ueshiba Morihei. That there is a problem here can be seen from the mere fact of the transformation of the art created by Ueshiba, from its origins as Daito-Ryu, through Aiki-budo, to its present postwar form as the general art of aikido, supposedly beneficial to everyone, both physically and spiritually. The alleged consequence of the transformation is that some crucial skills were lost: either because they were not taught to Ueshiba himself; or because Ueshiba himself, though he indeed acquired them, did not pass them on; or because Ueshiba's disciples had only a limited understanding of the skills that Ueshiba actually did attempt to pass on. The issues can be expressed as a set of ten questions concerning the cluster of skills involved:

1. What, exactly, do these skills consist of?
2. Did Takeda Sokaku possess these skills?
3. If so, how did Takeda Sokaku acquire these skills?
4. Did Takeda Sokaku teach these skills to all his disciples?
5. In particular, did Takeda Sokaku pass on these skills to Ueshiba Morihei?
6. If not, how did Ueshiba Morihei acquire these skills?
7. Did Ueshiba Morihei teach these skills, as part of his training methodology?
8. Did Ueshiba Morihei pass on these skills to all his disciples?
9. Did Ueshiba Morihei pass on these skills to those who claim succession from him: the heads of the schools practicing the various ‘flavors' of aikido, such as Yoseikan or Yoshinkan?
10. Does the acquisition of these skills form part of the teaching/training methodology of postwar aikido, especially the Aikikai?

Even framing the questions is something of an arbitrary process, which represents one individual set of issues about how martial arts supposedly work and how they can be described in words. For example, I have used the term ‘skills', rather than ‘power', which Amdur uses. The answers to the questions are by no means simple, either, and I will occasionally refer to these questions during the course of this essay.

Preliminaries
Amdur begins to answer several of these questions in his Forward (HIPS, pp. 13-16). He starts from the "riddle" that some students of Takeda Sokaku, including Ueshiba Morihei, possessed skills "thought to reside only in legends and myth".

"They presented a kind of power quite unlike that of a weight lifter or other strong man, this power so out of the ordinary that it is referred to by its own terms: ‘internal strength, aiki (‘unified energy'), or kokyu (‘breath power')."

"Some [meaning individuals whose power Amdur himself has experienced], using minimal movements, express unbelievable energy, as if detonating a controlled explosion in a small space. Others exert an inexorable force, like a boulder tipping over on top of you. And still others disappear, a ghostlike absence when you are sure you have grabbed them, but you [are] feeling as if you have clutched smoke or [are] stepping into a void."

"A so-called external martial art uses very sophisticated methods to enable an individual to use their body at the peak of its natural reflexes and potential. An internal martial art, on the other hand, attempts to transform the body's natural response to force—and at a higher level, to allegedly change the way one's own body actually functions." (Extracts all quoted from pp.13-14.)

First, one might raise questions about the basis of this distinction. By his use of ‘so-called', Amdur seems to suggest that the distinction is generally recognized—and from his explanation it would seem that it is generally (intuitively?) recognizable. I am not sure that this is the case. The distinction ‘external/internal' has been applied in related contexts, such as the distinction between External and Internal Arts, made in the seventeenth century by the Chinese historian Huang Zongxi (1610-1695). There was a clear context to the use of the distinction by Huang Zongxi, but it appears to have been applied to Chinese martial arts generally. The context in Amdur's discussion is somewhat different, but it is not clear from Amdur's description whether, for example, the terms are mutually exclusive: whether, for example, someone with adequate internal power really needs the other type—and vice versa. Secondly, the terms used by Amdur to denote this power (‘internal strength', aiki, kokyu, in the first sentence quoted) are not synonymous and this has the potential for causing problems when we come to discuss the matter of Ueshiba Morihei's alleged possession of internal power / skills.

Nevertheless, whether ‘external' or ‘internal', it was this power that led someone like Nakazono Mutsuru to aikido, but Nakazono eventually abandoned the art and turned to kotodama study. In one of his books he explains that Ueshiba Morihei had wreathed his obvious possession of this power in concepts that deprived it of clarity. Amdur does not mention Nakazono in this context, but the latter's explanation is actually relevant to the general theme of Amdur's book: as far as Nakazono was concerned, Ueshiba's power was not ‘hidden in plain sight'; it was simply hidden, obscured by the Omoto concepts that Ueshiba chose to explain his view of budo.

Amdur notes five connected reasons why knowledge and acquisition of these skills cannot be taken as a given in present-day Daito-ryu and aikido: (1) the culture of secrecy; (2) abuse of the traditional teacher-centered relationship in the art; (3) lack of peer pressure; (4) the ‘cult of the Sensei'; (5) the use of tricks that serve to obscure the lack of skills. These five reasons really deserve a book to themselves and several have already been written. Amdur ends this preliminary section with an important question: Why do we need to search for ‘internal' skills, anyway? After all, if aikido is an art available to everyone, it will clearly have to admit of different levels of skill—in all the relevant aspects of training for, displaying, and teaching the relevant physical, non-physical and ‘spiritual' skills. Amdur's answer is to throw the question back into the arena: aikido does indeed admit of different levels of skill, but this also includes an obligation on the practitioner to be honest and aim for the highest level possible (as Nakazono set out to do). For some practitioners, but not all—and this fact should be noted, this level will encompass so-called ‘internal' skills. (From now on, unless I am discussing the terms themselves, I will use the terms ‘external' and ‘internal' without the inverted commas.)

1. The Chinese Connection:Searching for the Inner Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons
Amdur begins his book by arguing for the existence of a deep Chinese connection with Japanese martial arts. As a very general statement, covering a period lasting several centuries, this is unarguable, but the real issues lie beneath the surface. Since Amdur has already made a rough distinction between external and internal martial arts and indicated that his main interest is in the latter, we can expect that his opening chapter will illuminate the relevance of the Chinese connection with Japanese martial arts for the internal power supposedly latent in the latter. The chapter consists of several short, interconnected essays, each of which will be considered below.

Riders from the Continent Bearing Gifts
Julian Barnes wrote a history of the world in ten-and-a-half chapters. Amdur has gone one better with a history of Japanese martial arts in ten paragraphs. This first section of the chapter is a very broad survey, outlining the alleged Chinese origins of jujutsu. Amdur starts off from Yamatai-koku, ruled by a queen and shaman popularly known as Himiko, and shepherds us efficiently through the Middle Ages to the Pax Tokugawa, where martial arts ceased to be really martial, at least in the sense of being testable on a battlefield. To do this effectively in such a short space, Amdur's brush has to be broad and the strokes accurate. The main problem here—and this is not restricted to Amdur's survey—is the nature of the evidence. For an age before writing, the evidence has to be archeological remains, correctly interpreted, which then might well lead to a certain interpretation of what chroniclers in later ages recorded about the prehistoric past. A good example of this mutual support of archeological and literary evidence can be found in the Cambridge History of Ancient China, which in one volume digests 1,000 years of prehistory, up till the Qin Empire in 221 BC. The same volume presents evidence that the invention of writing, for example, was not restricted to one place or culture. Rather, the occurrence of Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese pictographs, and Mayan hieroglyphs was sui generis—that is, unconnected—and, moreover, all these systems followed a similar developmental pattern. If this can happen with such a fundamental skill as writing, it is plausible to entertain the assumption that it can happen with other fundamental skills. The other, major, conclusion to be drawn from this Cambridge History is the extent to which any conclusions at all are—have to be—tentative.

Thus there are one or two ripples in an otherwise smoothly flowing narrative. It seems clear that horses came to Japan from the Asian mainland and, given that Japan was not connected to the mainland at the time, that such horses were not wild, but the real issue is how and when this happened. That shooting with arrows and wrestling also came from the Asian mainland is less clear, however, as is the evidence for the suggestion that the wrestling in question is fundamentally tied to horse riding. Nor is it at all clear that the Yamato people emigrated from the Korean peninsula or that these waves of immigration constituted an invasion, at least in military terms. It would seem that the arrival in Japan of foreigners from China and Korea had much to do with the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the effect of this on the kingdoms in Korea, but it is also plausible that these immigrants leavened with new and interesting technological skills the quality of the lives of the people who were already living in the Japanese islands. The point I am making here is that Amdur presents a rather extreme form of a thesis, according to which the ‘indigenous' residents of the Japanese archipelago were pushed further and further north by waves of hostile horse riders who hailed originally from Mongolia, rather like the ancient Britons, who were supposedly pushed further and further northwards and westwards by the Romans and later by waves of invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes—and became the Scots and the Irish (the invaders gradually becoming Anglo-Saxons). Less extreme forms of the thesis are also possible and have been made by J Edward Kidder and Delmer Brown, for example, in their respective essays in Volume One of The Cambridge History of Japan.

The Way of Japan's Indigenous Kami
In this opening section Amdur also refers to Shinto as ‘the indigenous religion of Japan' (HIPS, p. 19). Some scholars (notably Kuroda Toshio and Ian Reader) have criticized this phrase for being misleading. Amdur is concerned more with the effects of Shinto on martial training rather than Shinto itself, but one cannot assume either that at this time (the time of Buddhist influences eventually leading to ‘amalgamation') there actually was an indigenous religion, called Shinto, or that Shinto was actually a religion at all. However, as Amdur moves from general history to the specifics of the martial arts, he seems surer footed and on firmer ground as he narrows the focus of the discussion.

Amdur's references to Shinto are intended to explain the gradual blending of Shingon and Tendai Esoteric Buddhist practices with those of pre-existing mountain cults. The Japanese term for such practice, used by Kukai, or Kobo Daishi, is shugyo (修業): the repeated performance of prescribed activities (of an ascetic nature), involving sounds, gestures and visualizations, which, in Shingon Buddhism, are designed to yield the realization or awareness of one's originally enlightened nature. Again, the transformation of shugyo from Kukai & mountain cults, by way of Heian aristocrats on pilgrimages to Yoshino and Koya-san, Shugendo and yamabushi, Zeami and Sen no Rikyu, to a fully-fledged ‘theory of internal skills and training, appropriate for the Edo samurai in the dojo' was a complex process, some aspects of which have been studied by Japanese scholars. For example, the philosopher-psychologist Yuasa Yasuo began with the general phenomenon of shugyo and studied the effects of such training on the body/mind. Yuasa attempts to connect his work to that of scholars in the western tradition, where much independent research is now going on into what one may call ‘situated cognition': how one's cognition or one's awareness of the ‘mental' or ‘non-physical' is influenced by the fact that we are embodied beings. The distinctive aspect of Amdur's treatment in this section is the emphasis he gives to the influence of Mikkyo (the term for Shingon/Tendai religious/ascetic practices) on Japanese martial training regimes and the likelihood that Mikkyo was the pipe for the transmission of internal training methods and also for the conceptualization of internal skills. One of the issues here, however, is to maintain an adequate distinction between (1) the power/skills themselves, (2) the training methods used to acquire them, (3) the enlightenment they afford, and (4) magic and tricks. All four are in play with regard to Ueshiba Morihei.

Arming the Warrior from Within
Amdur's references to Shinto are intended to explain the gradual blending of Shingon practices and mountain cults in Shugendo. However, Amdur also shows that there was a great deal more interaction between the Chinese and the Japanese than shugyo, especially during such a long period. He puts the date at which specifically martial information arrived in Japan around 1467-1615, which is known in Japan as the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period). Before this period, the Chinese input was the martial application of esoteric training derived from religious practices. During this period, which was the time of the Ming dynasty in China (1368-1644), Chinese boxing manuals were smuggled into Japan and circulated "like Playboy magazines in a junior high school" (HIPS, p.22). Amdur deftly argues that the effect of civilian influences on Chinese martial arts gave the Chinese "a head start of many hundreds of years over Japan in pugilism and sophisticated unarmed grappling" (ibid.). The information came largely from southern China and was associated with the southern Shaolin schools.

However, this raises a curious question. The scholar Mikael S Adolphson has put together some impressive results of his research on the martial violence of the early medieval Buddhist/Shinto clergy in Japan, but the martial arts schools he mentions in The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha began under the Tokugawas. It is curious that the warrior monks and sohei left no traditions comparable to those of their Chinese counterparts, with the result that interested Japanese were scrambling for dubious texts from China at a time when there was already a glorious tradition still extant on their own doorstep. It is also curious that the methods for acquiring ‘internal' power / skills were so exclusive that the "junior high school boys" alluded to above needed to find specious material like the Heiho Okugisho (see below). Note also that this period was considerably earlier than the Genroku (mid-Tokugawa) Era, for example, when it became more customary for non-samurai to practice, or dabble in, martial arts.

Amdur concludes this section with a brief discussion on internal strength.

"After 1500 years of influence from China, it will never be known if there are any purely Japanese training methods of internal strength, but suffice it to say that the Japanese have never been a culture that simply absorbs information without adding its own stamp." (HIPS, p. 23.)

Here, of course, lies the problem, which applies not only to Amdur's discussion. While it is clear that there was Chinese influence, this has not been defined other than that it was either ‘external' or ‘internal' and there is no clear indication precisely how the Japanese added their own stamp to this influence, other than the obvious changes like that of vocabulary. However, Amdur cites some clear examples (HIPS, pp. 23-24) of how certain Japanese koryu exhibited types of training that seem to create or exploit internal strength. He spends the remainder of the chapter discussing the evidence for internal power / skills in each of the main lineages of Japanese jujutsu.

The Heiho Okugisho / Hidensho (兵法奥義書 / 兵法秘伝書)
Amdur begins this discussion with a sideways glance at this curious work, supposedly written by one Yamamoto Kansuke, who was a lieutenant of the warlord Takeda Shingen. English translations of this work are very difficult to find and so readers who wish to test Amdur's arguments will need to find a Japanese text, and especially the work referred to in his Footnote 3 (HIPS, p. 25). This is a collection of studies written by a Japanese scholar, named Omori Nobumasa. However, Takeda Shingen has been the subject of the Kurosawa film Kagemusha and often appears in Japanese TV jidai geki (時代劇: ‘period dramas'). His popularity has also spawned much literature on Yamamoto Kansuke in Japanese, some scholarly and worthy of attention, some not so worthy (see Reading). In fact, as Amdur notes, there are many questions about the Heiho Okugisho. The compiler of the treatise seems to have made a total mess of his editing and the explanations in Japanese do not match the illustrations, which have been directly cribbed from Chinese martial manuals.

Thus one question for this reviewer is Amdur's reason for devoting so much space to discussion of this particular work. On the one hand, it "perfectly illustrates the influence of Chinese martial arts on Japan," and the Chinese influence is certainly there. The work is presented as an example of Chinese influence on Japanese martial arts that was easily available to a certain class of readership. On the other hand, for Amdur it is clear that the book is of no value whatever for real martial arts training, even less for training to acquire internal skills. Since he discusses only this one major text with supposed Chinese influence, it would have been interesting to read Amdur's thoughts about the details of Chinese influence on the kind of training manuals that the Heiho Okugisho purports to be, but with much greater claim to authenticity than this particular work. In other words, the work needs to be compared with classic manuals, such as the Heiho Kadensho (兵法家伝書) of the Yagyu family, to see how the Chinese influence operates here. In the introduction to his English translation, William Scott Wilson stresses the influence of Mikkyo on Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, but we have to take his word for it. If the argument of this chapter is correct, the effects of the Mikkyo connection with Yagyu Shinkage Ryu are especially to be found in the internal power and skills of this art.

Three Jujutsu Schools
In his survey of the main Japanese jujutsu lineages, Amdur faces the difficult problem of separating out the Chinese influence on the internal skills supposedly displayed in these lineages and of distinguishing this influence from any ‘purely Japanese' internal training methods. Amdur certainly lays out the case for Chinese influence, but the ways in which the Japanese modified this influence are rather less clearly depicted.

The Mysterious Chen
Amdur begins with Kito-ryu and the exploits of one Chen Yuan-yun (1587-1671), who arrived in Nagasaki in 1619, roughly around the time that people were supposedly beginning to read the Heiho Okugisho/Hidensho. Chen is supposed to have moved first to Kyoto and then to Edo (Tokyo) and to have met three samurai: Isogai Jirozaemon, Miura Yojiemon, and Fukuno Shichiroemon, the last of whom was the founder of the jujutsu art known as Kito-ryu. There is little generally available on Chen Yuan-yun in English, but the ABC-CLIO martial arts encyclopedias mention him (see Reading). For those who can read Japanese—and are in a position to draw their own conclusions, a short extract from the Japanese Wikipedia article is given below:

Amdur's discussion turns on what, exactly, Chen is supposed to have taught the three samurai when for three years he was in residence at the Kokushoji Temple in Edo and this is the main issue for the writer(s) of the Wikipedia article. Both cite Komatsubara To,『陳元贇の研究』: (Studies on Chin Gen'in), who, according to Amdur,

"speculates that Chen may have learned the staff fighting methods and breathing exercises associated with the militias of the Shaolin monasteries, who were famous at the time for fighting Japanese coastal raiders." (HIPS, p. 29.)

Komatsubara's ‘speculations' are in fact a detailed discussion on pp. 94-115 of his book, which also gives the names of 81 秘技 (‘secret techniques', allegedly recorded by Miura Yojiemon). Amdur favors the thesis that Chen taught or showed internal skills. His argument turns on some very interesting analyses and discussions—speculations again, centering on the meaning of terms in certain Japanese texts. One issue for this reviewer is that, even apart from the problem of interpreting single words such as 満 (mitsuru /michiru), there is the problem of interpreting the texts in such a way that the internal contradictions are either dissolved—or maintained. Thus, in one text, Chen allegedly does not know the "art" of which he speaks, but he knows (= 満: "is filled to the brim with") the "techniques" of the art. This knowledge is such that he can describe the "techniques" to Fukuno's satisfaction, with the consequence that the latter can not only incorporate them into his existing jujutsu repertoire, but also "devise such techniques" for himself.

Another text states that Chen had "seen" (= 見る: "studied", which Amdur takes to be a "writing", or editing, of the original 満) the techniques for many years and that Fukuno also watched Chen practice the "techniques, and studied it [the art?], along with the jujutsu on which he had been working, devising his own techniques until his abilities matured." (HIPS, pp. 31-32). The writer adds that this was the beginning of all yawara, but that Chen himself did not know or teach yawara.

In his 1887 essay "Jujutsu", Kano Jigoro also recounts the meeting between Cheng and the three samurai. According to Kano's version, "Cheng told them that in China there was an art of seizing a man, which he had seen himself practiced, but had not learned its principles. On hearing this, these three men made investigations and afterwards became very skillful." (HIPS, p. 32, Amdur's italics.) The translation of the episode made by Watatani Kiyoshi (of Bugei Ryuha Daijiten fame and a mentor of Don F Draeger) also plays down Chen's importance: "In China, there are methods with which you can subdue other people. It's not that I know those particular techniques, but I've had many chances to observe and hear about them." (HIPS, p. 33, Note 15.)

If only things were so easy and straightforward nowadays. The encounter of Chen and the three samurai makes all the AikiWeb discussions on internal power / skills seem arduous and clumsy by comparison. This is not to belittle these discussions in any way, but to suggest that there is a certain romantic element in the accounts, which makes the acquisition of the skills seem rather easier than it actually was. Although Chen was in residence for three years, we do not know how long his encounter was with the three samurai. Nevertheless, Chen, who disclaimed all knowledge of the art, but had either ‘seen' or was ‘full to the brim' with the ‘techniques' of the art, which he further described or even showed, such that at least one of the three samurai (the Edo equivalent of MMA experts?) was able to increase his skill to a very serious degree. Amdur admits that there is an issue about Chen's internal skills and that he himself is more convinced than Kano, Watatani or Draeger that Chen possessed these skills. The fact that some masters of Kito-ryu, such as Takino Yuken and Kato Ukei, supposedly possessed these skills in abundance needs explanation and Amdur prefers the influence of Chen, rather than any supposition that they somehow worked things out solely by themselves. Amdur provides footnotes setting out much of the evidence for his speculations, but I would have liked to see more of the evidence laid out in Japanese, especially for the controversial issues centering on the translation of certain Japanese terms. Perhaps this was not possible for reasons of cost.

Yoshin-ryu & Tenjin Shinyo-ryu
In his discussion of the other jujutsu lineages, Amdur seems on firmer ground. We have more discussion of the character 満 (see above), which adds yet another important meaning to the term. As with Kito-ryu, so here, the central issue is to what extent expertise in Yoshin-ryu and Tenjin Shinyo-yu involves mastery of internal power / skills that have been learned from Chinese teachers, rather than having been developed ‘indigenously'. Amdur considers two examples of such expertise: Akiyama Shirobei Yoshitaki, founder of a branch of Yoshin-ryu, and the writings of Iso Mataemon and Yoshida Chiharu, of Tenjin Shinyo-ryu, the latter especially concerned with teachings on internal energy. We will consider these in turn.

The Bending of the Willow
There were a number of Yoshin-ryu schools in the Nagasaki area of Japan and, since Nagasaki was the gateway through which things Chinese entered Japan, it is concluded that the schools mixed Chinese martial and medicines with Japanese jujutsu, as the founder of Yoshin Koryu, Nakamura Yoshikuni, did in 1610. Another school, Miura-ryu, was started by Miura Yojiemon, who was one of the three samurai who met Chen Yuan'yun, while the founder of the third school, Akiyama Shirobei Yoshitaki (illustration on p. 39), went to China to study medicine, but learned some martial skills as well. Akiyama once saw a willow tree bending under the weight of snow. The important point for Amdur is not the "soft blending" of the willow and the snow, but the "explosive power" of the willow, as it shrugs off the snow and springs back. It was this revelation that led Akiyama to develop new training methods, including internal training methods. "The latter involved a coordination of deep controlled breathing and movement. These breathing techniques are still considered among the most important techniques of extant traditions of Yoshin-ryu." (HIPS, p. 39.) Based on his own experiences of running two arts, Amdur strongly suggests that Akiyama devised his new training methods, not from personal revelations, but from hard experience with skilled and ‘unwilling' opponents. Amdur draws two conclusions:

"It is obvious that Akiyama's unnamed Chinese instructors taught him far more than three techniques of punching or kicking. How could he, otherwise, have possible created an entire system of fighting—weapons training included? Perhaps this is merely a case of the Japanese trying to minimize Chinese influence. Could he have been taught an entire system of Chinese martial arts? But this, too, is a dubious proposition, because if it were true, such an intact system would have continued in Japan, albeit changed, much as karate, on offshoot of southern Shaolin methods, continued in Okinawa. There is no evidence that this occurred." (HIPS, p. 40.)

This account is plausible, but there are questions concerning this vexing problem of Chinese influence on Japanese jujutsu. Amdur asks whether Akiyama could have acquired a whole system of Chinese martial arts and expresses his doubts. He has previously distinguished between external arts and internal arts, but curiously does not invoke the distinction here. If he had, the question would be whether Akiyama could have learned some kind of more or less complete internal system, which he then used as a base for his new training methods.

Amdur's second conclusion is that Akiyama studied some basic and necessary methods of internal training, either principles that became kata or already existing kata, by means of intensive solo practice.

"It is likely that through truly dedicated and obsessive practice, Akiyama was immovable when pushed, blindingly fast, and was able to down other people with a mere shake or pulse of his body when they laid hands in him." (ibid.)

Amdur adds that the problem was that such solo training is long and tedious and in any case would have been ineffective against a sword blade. Thus, in order to combat the boredom of his students or himself, Akiyama created weapons-based kata that embodied the "principles of neuro-physical organization that he had already acquired". Of course, presumably this ineffectiveness against a blade would apply to a complete internal system, as well as to the few methods that Akiyama allegedly acquired. As before with the three samurai who encountered Chen Yuan'yun, the issue here is what precisely Akiyama learned at the hands of his Chinese teacher(s) and how much he added that was his own.

Two Scrolls
In giving this analysis of Akiyama, Amdur had the good fortune to draw on the knowledge of the headmaster of an existing school of Yoshin-ryu that retains the training methods of two of the earlier schools, now extinct. The school is Takamura-ha Shindo Yoshin-ryu and the headmaster is Toby Threadgill. Mr Threadgill describes one part of the Nairiki no Gyo, part of the solo training set out in the former of two scrolls: the Ten no Maki and the Jin no Maki:

"They are solo exercises that inculcate the proper balance, movement, and muscular application utilized in our greater curriculum. These types of exercises are actually quite common in Japanese jujutsu ryu of the Edo period, although they are rather unfamiliar to those who are not initiates of specific ryu. According to Yoshin-ryu lore, this form of body training was introduced to Japan from China in the mid-Edo period, the Nairiki no Gyo being specifically created as adaptations of Chinese practices intended to augment the study and application of specific body skills required in Yoshin-ryu's greater curriculum." (Quoted by Amdur in HIPS, pp. 42-43.)

Just before this, Amdur has noted that the Ten no Maki has two types of solo training forms: one that builds spiritual power that can then appear in one's physical body; the other that enables one to endure physical and spiritual hardship, as well as entering a transcendent state of mind. This complements the Jin no Maki scroll, which includes the study of vital points and revival techniques, based on Chinese models, together with empty handed and weapons techniques designed to disrupt the enemy's physical and psychological equilibrium. Although the Ten no Maki includes rituals and prayers of esoteric Shinto, the language here reminds this reviewer of Kukai's explanations of sanmitsu: the shugyo designed to afford one the awareness of one's enlightened state. Thus we may conclude that there is a very important segment of training that involves the acquisition of internal power and skills and also that there is very definite Chinese influence involved here. However, it is also relevant that the illustration of the Nairiki no Gyo in HIPS (p. 42) is partially obscured because of the need to preserve the internal secrets of the ryu.

Here we come up against a crucial factor, which is of great relevance to any discussion of Chinese influence on Japanese koryu. It is hinted at by Threadgill's reference to exercises "being quite common in jujutsu ryu, but unfamiliar to those who not initiates of particular ryu." This factor is the Chinese / Japanese view of knowledge and its dissemination, which Amdur has already alluded to earlier as the ‘culture of secrecy'. This is not merely a matter of open possession and dissemination of facts or truths about the art and training. Students are always encouraged to find a good teacher and these is a reason for this. Knowledge (especially knowing how, which is always bestowed exclusively by the teacher) is not given to a disciple (who is judged incapable of gaining knowledge by himself) until he shows he is worthy or able to receive it. In any case the knowledge will not be understood as knowledge until is it correctly interpreted, hence the need for kuden or hiden or gokui, or the means of breaking a code. This issue is generally encompassed within koryu training, since the latter always assumes a progressive understanding of the metaphor categories of the art, which are gradually mastered by initiates along with the waza and kata. However, I think that this factor is of greater relevance—it is more of an issue—in respect of judo and postwar aikido.

Explanations by Numbers
The explanations given by Amdur of the internal training in Tenjin Shinyo-ryu are more detailed than for Yoshin-ryu. What he has done is to give a translation and commentary of a book (title unspecified) by Iso Mataemon and Yoshida Chiharu. The book is divided into numbered explanations (説). Several pages are given over to this and the first commentaries and explanations concern a further meaning of michiru (満), the term encountered before in the discussion concerning Chen Yuan-yun. The extracts begin with an explanation of ki (気) and tai (体).

"Within the body and spirit, there is in and yo. Inside the body, as it becomes active, the internal energy becomes yo. However, when the body calms, the internal energy becomes in. In this ryu, the methods of managing ki are mainly taught via training waza. Because the ki is only contained in the body, it is intangible and cannot be seen with the naked eye. It is only properly felt when the body is "packed" with ki. The strength of ki when the body is packed becomes an everyday occurrence. When the mind and body are at rest, ki becomes dormant." (HIPS, pp. 44-45.)

Amdur comments that this passage makes a distinction between the development of ki and the management of ki. The "packed" ki, as a result of waza, lies dormant in the body, "ready to use in an instant". The explanation in the book continues by stressing the need to "fill the body with ki and stay healthy". This is a counter to the tendency, when starting training, for the ki to dissipate or weaken. Amdur sees here a major difference between this type of training and ordinary exercise or bodybuilding. In other words, the waza are used specifically to "generate and perpetuate internal energy", rather than to induce fatigue or exhaustion, which happens with "ordinary training".

There is more discussion of "packing ki" in a later section. The Japanese title is 気ヲ満ル事: ki wo michiru-koto, and the character for michiru (満ちる) is the same as in the account given of Chen Yuan-yun. The obvious question is whether the meanings are identical or related. In contemporary Japanese, the Chinese ON reading of the character 満 is MAN and the meaning is ‘full'. The Japanese used this character for two aspects of the same basic concept: mitasu: ‘to fill', and michiru: ‘to become full', and almost all of the compounds have this as the central component of their meaning. In a footnote to his earlier discussion on Chen Yuan-yun, Amdur explains why he prefers this translation, as a verb, in preference to the weaker adverbial "exhaustively", given by Prof. William Bodiford. One can clearly see the difference here, for the concept of (actively) "packing" ki extends this core meaning and intensifies it, so to speak. The metaphors used in the explanation include the natural (and complete) tension of a well-strung bow, or the thousand hands of the goddess Kannon, all moving in unison. The numbered section ends with an explanation of the Kannon metaphor:

"If the mind moves in one way, there will be hands that move and hands that remain static. If there are static hands, then the reason for possessing so many hands becomes meaningless. This is not packing of ki.This is the packing of ki: When ki has filled your entire body, from top to toes, even the fingertips, with no gaps, than that is the correct method." (HIPS, p. 47.)

Since the purpose of this review is to encourage readers to buy Amdur's book and read / examine / ‘interrogate' it critically, I will not spill any more beans about the contents of this section. There is one more important concept that needs discussion, however, since this will serve as a useful bridge to the next section. This concept is 鑑磨 [or 鏡] kagami migaki, which means ‘polishing the mirror'. The discussion of this concept in HIPS does not form part of the explanations in the book written by Iso Mataemon and Yoshida Chiharu. However, Amdur refers to the concept as another example of internal training in Tenjin Shinyo-ryu. Kagami migaki

"enhances breath control, posture, attention span, and stamina. … The kata itself includes a method for the integration of the entire body through what appears to be mere circular movements of the arms—that look as if one is polishing a mirror." (HIPS, p. 44.)

Amdur does not go into detail about the specific nature of this training, beyond the tantalizing quotation from his informant:

"Kagami migaki is almost in the same league as a Chinese Qi-gong exercise. You inhale while dropping the hips, keeping your spine erect and in alignment with the head and hips, followed by exhalation." (ibid.)

As Amdur also mentions, kagami migaki is a phrase used in Zen Buddhism to describe the freeing of the true self from delusion. It is used by at least one contemporary aikido instructor, who also practices Zen Buddhism, and I suspect that he uses the phrase in this sense, and not in the sense understood in Tenjin Shinyu-ryu. We will encounter kagami migaki once more in the following section.

What happened to Jujutsu?
As a conclusion to this chapter, Amdur considers this very interesting question, which to me offers a very clear parallel with the question of what happened to aikido after World War II. Amdur's basic answer is that judo is what happened to jujutsu. Actually, the parallel with aikido extends here, too, since judo became a ‘mass' martial art, dedicated also to wider aims than purely using internal or external skill to defeat one or more opponents. We need to examine this supposed defeat of jujutsu at the hands of judo in more detail.

Amdur begins by noting that before the Meiji Period, jujutsu ryu had many thousands of practitioners. To see how valid is this point, we may go on to ask the obvious question: to what extent was jujutsu, like sumo, a ‘mass' martial art, open to any Japanese male who had an interest in it? Another way of putting this question is to ask to what extent the vast majority of jujutsu practitioners actually acquired the internal power / skills discussed earlier. Did they acquire them, but to a far lesser extent than the few "uncommon individuals, who lived the ryu, who made it their flesh, and their bone", as Amdur puts it? Or was this aspect of the ryu a completely closed book to them, since they never progressed far enough in the art to have the means of acquiring these skills revealed to them? As far as I can see, Amdur does not answer this question, but, judging from his later discussion about Kano's teachers, his answer would be negative. If Kano's own teachers did not possess internal power / skills, it is unlikely that their students would, either.

The point of raising these questions is to blunt to some extent the sharp distinction suggested by Amdur between the vibrant, pristine, ‘internal purity' of the jujutsu ryu and the loss of all these skills at the hands of Kodokan judo. So, while Amdur suggests that judo is what happened to jujutsu, it is plausible that Kano was helped considerably by the jujutsu ryu themselves, the ossification of which progressively came to embody the five connected reasons, cited by Amdur earlier, why knowledge and acquisition of internal skills cannot be taken as a given in present day Daito-ryu and aikido: (1) the culture of secrecy; (2) abuse of the traditional teacher-centered relationship in the art; (3) lack of peer pressure; (4) the ‘cult of the Sensei'; (5) the use of tricks that serve to obscure the lack of skills.

‘Scientific' Techniques: Nothing ‘Internal'
Thus, Amdur gives the main reason why he believes Kano was able to create Kodokan judo at the age of twenty-three. He defeated his own teachers in free-style practice: something that Amdur believes should have been impossible if the latter had internal power / skills. Moreover, after Kano had established the Kobukan and devised his new method of grappling, the defeat of jujutsu practitioners, even in grappling matches that were controlled by various rules, should not have been possible if the jujutsu practitioners had actually acquired the internal skills taught within their own ryu.

In his essay on the birth of Kodokan judo, Murata Naoki recounts in more detail Kano's defeat of one of his teachers.

"The study of Bujutsu was centered on hard training and learning from actual experience. Kano dedicated himself to training and was not inclined to refrain from asking his teacher difficult questions. If a suitable reply was not forthcoming, he would persistently ask again and again. His teacher would reply, "even if I did tell you, you wouldn't understand anyway. Just shut up and train. That's the only way to learn, so get up and let's go." (Murata, "From "Jutsu" to "Do": The Birth of Kodokan Judo", Alexander Bennett, Budo Perspectives, p. 144.)

Thus the teacher was acting in accordance with the traditional knowledge paradigm, but one wonders if Kano's difficult questions involved matters other than technique.

"Kano would incessantly analyze hand and hip movements, and footwork utilized in nage-waza (throws). He was never satisfied with simply doing what he was instructed to do, and felt compelled to understand the mechanics of each technique he executed. Rarely receiving the answers he was after, he began to develop grave doubts about the traditional methods of instruction." (ibid.)

"One day, he was able to successfully throw his teacher. This time, it was the teacher who asked a question of Kano. "Kano, how did you pull that technique off?" He replied, "I watched how you throw your students, and then I would analyze it with my friends when I got home. I learned that when you are about to throw somebody, they will inevitably stop and become rigid, and try to avoid the flow of the technique. Then you use this against them and execute the throw. I have been watching and analyzing this for a long time, and decided to test it out on you today." (ibid.)

"With that, his teacher submitted that he had no more he could teach the young Kano, and he was awarded a Kito-ryu teaching licence." (ibid.)

At least Kano's teacher was honest, but it is noteworthy how Murata couched his response: there was nothing more he could teach Kano. The presence or absence of internal skill never enters the question.

Inoue Shun obliquely alludes to the decline of jujutsu in his essay on the invention of the martial arts.

"From the beginning of the Kodokan, rather than wedding himself to any one school, Kano created a new "scientific" martial art by selecting the best techniques of the established schools of jujutsu. Initially, he combined wrestling moves and techniques of delivering blows to vital points of the body emphasized in the Tenjin Shin'yo school with throwing techniques that were the mainstay of the Kito school. But Kani did not limit his research to the techniques of these two schools. Owing to the declining popularity of bujutsu, he was able to purchase at used bookstores previously closely guarded martial arts instructional manuals." (Inoue, "The Invention of the Martial Arts: Jigoro Kano and Kodokan Judo," Stephen Vlastos, Mirror of Modernity, pp. 164-165.)

Inoue is concerned to present the invention of judo as an example of the ‘invention of tradition' (as this phrase is used by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger and discussed in a previous column). Thus he stresses the importance of the "scientific" methodology of judo, which was fashionable in Meiji / Taisho Japan, and also the equal importance of seeing judo as part of Japan's earlier, and glorious, martial tradition. Nevertheless, both Murata and Inoue reinforce Amdur's point about the decline in internal power / skills, which would seem to apply to Kano's teachers. This leads Amdur to touch on the question of Kano Jigoro's own knowledge of internal power / skills and the following paragraph gives a fair idea of his answer.

"Perhaps this is among my most unfounded speculations, but I believe that Kano's teachers did not possess the kind of high-level skill of such men as Ukei Kato. Kano surely knew of them through writings or legends, but as a student of these ryu, he never experienced the skills himself, even if he was exposed, to some degree, to the teachings that produced them. Therefore, he had little reason to include such training in his nascent martial art." (HIPS, p. 51.)

Amdur notes that those jujutsu schools that made ‘common cause' with the Kodokan paid diminishing attention in their curricula to such items as Nairiki no Gyo, and that the kagami migaki movement in one of the kata that Kano created was

"a simple method of calisthenics with a Japanese character. There is nothing written, nor have I been able to find any information that suggests that Kano intended his adaptation of the Tenjin Shinyo-ryu movements to create internal power." (HIPS. p. 51.)

This observation is highly relevant to aikido, since the same can be stated of many other body, hand and foot movements in the art. At the beginning of his class at the last IAF Congress, Tada Hiroshi Shihan spent a long time doing complex breathing exercises, which, of course, were tied to movements. (In his extended seminars here in Hiroshima Tada Shihan usually spends at least two hours on such exercises.) One of these exercises was a movement very similar to the kagami migaki exercise describe by Amdur. It is well known that Tada became a member of the Tempukai and Ichikukai when he entered the Aikiai and rose to prominence in the Aikikai Hombu at a time when Tohei Koichi was in charge of instruction there. It is clear that Tada's movements are not simply calisthenics, but he never mentions ‘internal power / skill' when he explains them.

Why is the issue of Kano Jigoro and internal power of such interest? The main reason for this reviewer is Kano's similarity to Ueshiba Kisshomaru, Morihei's son and heir. Like Kano, Kisshomaru presided over—some would go further and say he created—the dramatic expansion of aikido as a ‘mass' martial art after the Second World War.

A Thread of Gold
We need to make a brief check on progress made so far. I believe that this first chapter is central to Amdur's book and so I have examined it in great detail. Given the content of his next chapter, on Takeda Sokaku, one overriding question that should arise as a result of Amdur's discussion in the present chapter would be: what is the relationship between the Chinese connection with Japanese martial arts and the internal skills allegedly possessed by Takeda and some of his students? Does Amdur's discussion on Chinese the influence on Japanese jujutsu, especially the emphasis on internal power / skills, serve to throw adequate light on the nature of the latter, such that we can understand Takeda's legendary skills and their provenance?

One of the problems in creating a book out of articles is to make sure that the latter fit the overall theme of the book. Having an overall theme is easier when the plan precedes the writing of the individual chapters. In this regard, Amdur's first chapter shows some signs of strain. The several short sections of this chapter, all self-contained, but dealing with the general question of Chinese influence on Japanese martial arts, seem more like stepping stones, crossing a much larger pool. As with stepping-stones, one moves from one to another. This makes for an interesting trip across the pool, but is not perhaps the best method for charting its dimensions, the purpose (as stated above) being to illuminate the nature and relevance of the Chinese connection with Japanese martial arts for the internal power supposedly latent in the latter.

To put this observation in context, a possible alternative plan of such an introductory chapter might have been, not to start immediately with the Japanese martial arts and their possible Chinese connections, which some might think is putting the cart before the horse, but to start with the crucial Chinese elements themselves and present (i) a general background discussion of how the Chinese defined and explained external and internal power and skills and related these to their own martial arts, and (ii) some indication of the methodology involved in developing internal power / skills as the Chinese conceived these. Since there are separate Chinese terms for the power, the training undertaken to acquire the power, and the arts embodying the power, which, in any case, have to be experienced directly, there is scope for a great deal of confusion as these terms are translated / interpreted across different languages and cultures.

Amdur has not given this general background and perhaps it is not possible. If so, I think this is the one chapter of his book that cries out for more detailed bibliographical assistance to the reader, especially the reader who has never even considered the possibility there might be skills crucial to aikido, which he/she has never even heard of. There is an important context to this. AikiWeb discussion forums are full of discussions about ‘internal training' (or ‘IT'), but the discussions are like clusters of planets wandering in a huge galaxy. Thus, the five reasons that Amdur spelled out earlier, about why the dissemination of internal skills cannot be taken for granted in aikido, apply equally to the Aikiweb discussions about these skills. Moreover, these discussions are sometimes conducted with messianic fervor, but also with a certain linguistic imperialism, according to which the preferred terms of the discourse have previously been decided, usually by those thought to possess the power / skills under discussion. As a result, since there is rarely any common ground between the genuine ‘haves' and the ‘have-nots' who think (= believe, feel, suspect) they are ‘haves', the discussions tend to become increasingly pointless repetitions of the same general discourse. Thus, Amdur would have done his readers a great service by establishing a vocabulary, certainly based on Chinese antecedents—but also showing how the Japanese changed this, and also by dealing with the IHTBF (It has to be felt) question. Without direct experience of the powers/skills in question, there is little possibility of any common ground for such a discussion. It is the opinion of this reviewer that IHTBF does indeed apply to this power, but also that the power, and the training necessary to acquire it, can be discussed with profit, as at least one dedicated website (not AikiWeb) has shown.

2. Hidden in plain sight? It's in the Aizu.Preliminaries: Psychology and Sources
Amdur is a psychologist by profession and in this chapter he has produced what is probably the first-ever psychological profile of a famous martial arts master. Psychological profiling has a mixed reputation, for in the UK it has sometimes been used to secure criminal convictions that have later turned out to be unsafe. I am sure that Amdur is aware of the dangers, but in this chapter he uses psychological profiling to illuminate the thinking and martial motivations of Takeda Sokaku.

In discussing Takeda's alleged possession of internal power / skills we encounter some major problems, which actually bedevil any discussion of Takeda Sokaku—or of Ueshiba Morihei, for that matter. First, there is no one alive who has actually felt Takeda and so we have to rely on the verbal descriptions and explanations of those who were his disciples or who did feel his power. Thus the first problem is how to evaluate the eyewitness accounts of Takeda in action. In the case of Ueshiba Morihei, such verbal descriptions and explanations can be supplemented by videos and DVDs of him in action. In addition, many of the deshi who directly learned from Ueshiba are still alive and practice aikido, but these deshi, apparently, constitute another major problem. They provide no consistent source of information about Ueshiba's specifically ‘internal' skills. This reason is related to the other side of the IHTBF coin: if you do not have some idea of what you are looking for—because you have never been taught to look for and recognize specifically ‘internal' power and skills, then it becomes very difficult to judge adequately what you have discovered—and this is especially the case if you are practicing waza or taking ukemi from waza, rather than being explicitly taught to do solo internal training exercises with specific, ‘hands-on' instructions from the teacher.

Sources
The information that the deshi of both Takeda and Ueshiba provide comes from various sources: books and articles they have written and in particular the interviews conducted by Stanley Pranin, from Aiki News and Aikido Journal, and published in book form or on his website. Amdur's discussion on Takeda relies to some extent on the interviews conducted with Takeda Tokimune, Takeda Sokaku's son. However, these need to be supplemented by the material collected and published by Kimura Tatsuo, a disciple of Sagawa Yukiyoshi, of which the most important is a book with the title 『透明な力』 (Tomeina Chikara; An English version has been published as Transparent Power).

Of course, there is an issue here, which will become clearer as we proceed. Since they do not appear to be able to replicate it, Ueshiba Morihei's deshi are generally considered to be unreliable about Ueshiba's own possession of internal power. However, this is not the case, apparently, with Takeda's deshi. In fact, one of the latter is on record as having discovered aiki, which is one of Andur's terms for internal power / skills, at the age of seventeen and is also on record making a much bolder claim, namely, that Takeda Sokaku would have improved his own (internal?) skills if he had trained in a certain way—which is the way his own student trained. The only deshi of Ueshiba who comes closest to this level of certainty is Tohei Koichi, who is generally thought to possess some measure of internal power/skills and who is on record as having picked and chosen what he learned from Ueshiba. Tohei, however, also learned from other teachers.

To put this issue very bluntly, Takeda's own deshi are thought to be generally accurate about their perception of Takeda's internal skills and, despite the fact that they do not say very much about these skills explicitly, this is the evidence for the supposition that he actually possessed these skills. On the other hand, Ueshiba's own deshi are thought to be generally inaccurate about Ueshiba's own possession of internal skills, so we have to seek other evidence that Ueshiba himself possessed these skills. The result is that obtaining reliable information on the actual internal skills that Takeda possessed and then comparing these with those of his students, notably Ueshiba and Sagawa, is not an easy task.

Takeda Sokaku's Life: Version 1
To begin with, a brief account of the martial aspects of Takeda Sokaku's life will be in order. The usual source for this is Stanley Pranin's superb introduction to the interviews he collected. Here is a summary:

Takeda was born in 1859, during the closing years of the Tokugawa shogunate. He was born into the Aizu clan, which was one of the main supporters of the shogun and which thus came into violent conflict with the forces seeking to overthrow him. His father, Takeda Sokichi, was an expert at sumo wrestling, but was also a swordsman and exponent of bojutsu. It can safely be assumed that these skills, as well as the family art of Daito-ryu, were taught to Sokaku. It is also assumed that Sokaku's uncle, Dengoro Kurokochi, taught his nephew Hozoin-ryu Takada-ha sojutsu. Sokaku also studied the Ono-ha Itto-ryu sword art at the Yokikan dojo of Shibuya Toma. In 1872, when he was thirteen, Sokaku became an uchi-deshi at the Jikishinkage-ryu dojo of Sakakibara Kenichi, who was a friend of his father. The curriculum included the sword, spear, staff, small bow, kusarigama, and naginata. In addition, as a student, Sokaku matched his skills with many other experts of the various martial arts schools in Tokyo. This training lasted until 1876, when the sudden death of his brother Sokatsu caused Sokaku to leave Tokyo and return to Tohoku, where he became a student for the priesthood at a temple run by Chikanori Hoshina. Sokaku's training lasted only a few weeks, for he set off to join the army of Saigo Takamori in Kyushu. He called at the Sakakibara dojo on the way and received a letter of introduction to Momonoi Shunzo, who taught Kyoshin Meichi-ryu kenjutsu in Osaka. During this time he travelled as far south as Okinawa and possibly to Hawai‘i.

Takeda Sokaku was really travelling from place to place, practicing 武者修行 (musha shugyo, or ascetic training in the martial arts), and he practiced this form of training for a very long period. In 1882 Takeda returned to Tohoku and, apart from a visit to Hokkaido in 1887, remained there for several years. Stanley Pranin suggests that he continued his own training in Daito-ryu at the hands of his father Sokichi and also travelled around practicing his musha shugyo. From around 1900 onwards, however, Takeda changed his approach. The intensive regime of musha shugyo decreased as his teaching activities increased. These activities can be discerned from his enrollment books and payment books, which constitute a record of all those he taught in Daito-ryu. In 1910 Takeda moved from Tohoku to Hokkaido and it was here that he taught his more famous students: Horikawa Taiso, Horikawa Kodo, Sagawa Yukiyoshi, Matsuda Toshimi, Yoshida Kotaru and, through an introduction from Yoshida, Ueshiba Morihei. Takeda remained in Hokkaido for the rest of his life, except for brief periods away. These included several months he spent with Ueshiba in Ayabe, in 1922, when he was accompanied by his family. At some point Takeda designated Tokimune, who began training around 1925, as his successor and groomed him accordingly. From 1936 to 1939, Takeda was in Osaka, instructing at the Asahi News dojo, which he took over from Ueshiba Morihei and where his leading student remained Hisa Takuma. After his return to Hokkaido, Takeda continued his peripatetic teaching activities until he died in 1943.

According to Stanley Pranin,

"Takeda can be considered the consummate old-style martial artist who viewed life as a battlefield where a moment of carelessness could result in death. For Sokaku, his hard-earned martial skills were secrets to be jealously guarded and shown only to a responsible elite who paid well for the privilege." (Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu, p. 10.)

Pranin gives this sketch of Takeda as evidence of the "futility" of comparing Takeda with Ueshiba Morihei or Kano Jigoro, "so unique were the accomplishments of these three martial arts geniuses" (ibid.). For Pranin, the futility appears to stem from the differences in the martial arts they created, rather than from any similarity in their training. There is no specific mention in Pranin's account, or in the interviews that follow, of internal skills (though there are plenty of references to ‘aiki' and ‘applying aiki'). For Amdur, on the other hand, there is no such futility in making such a comparison, since it is a probable hypothesis that all three used internal skills, but to varying degrees. Amdur has already made some references to Kano's grasp (more probably, lack) of internal skills in his earlier chapter on jujutsu; the comparisons between Ueshiba and Takeda follow in the rest of the book.

Amdur begins his chapter on Daito-ryu with a sketch of Takeda Sokaku's early life and his initial exposure to the martial arts. Amdur's treatment can profitably be compared with that of Stanley Pranin, summarized above. Pranin, the careful investigator/historian, simply presents what is known, though he admits that his main source is Takeda's son Tokimune. Amdur, the ‘speculator', goes somewhat further and obliquely calls into question Tokimune's own grasp of Daito-ryu history. It is not that Amdur disputes the actual facts of Takeda's life; rather, he questions the significance of certain references to Daito-ryu: its supposed medieval or legendary origins; the significance of its oshikiuchi techniques. He also examines acutely and perceptively (more than either Takeda Tokimune or Stanley Pranin had occasion to) the significance of the arts that Takeda Sokaku actually learned and practiced. The result is a tour de force: a complex but cogent analysis of Takeda's martial life, but told from the viewpoint of a psychologist, a counselor who is accustomed to listening to and working with the very same kind of troubled individuals of whom Takeda was thought to be an example. When reading Amdur's account, therefore, the perceptive reader should consider two questions: (1) Does his account of Takeda's life and exploits hang together? Is it cogent enough to be convincing? (2) Does the psychological profile of Takeda illuminate his complex and changing relationship with Ueshiba Morihei, especially in respect of the latter's alleged possession of internal power and internal skills, which I take to be a major issue of the book? We will need to raise this second question again, when we come to discuss Amdur's treatment of Ueshiba, for there are some issues here that he does not raise. In the rest of this section, I will begin a discussion of the first question.

Some Questions and Paradoxes
Amdur begins his chapter on Takeda by emphasizing his uniqueness.

"Shortly before the turn of the 20th century, a remarkable man appeared, at once a feudal anachronism and utterly unique. Takeda Sokaku embodied a lost era, a man of single-minded intent and almost unimaginable skill. Many among the greatest martial artists of his time, both weapons experts and jujutsu exponents, enrolled as his students. He taught thousands of individuals of the highest status—magistrates and police, in particular." (HIPS, p. 55.)

Questions arise immediately. To what extent was Takeda a ‘feudal anachronism'? To what extent was Takeda actually representative of Japan's ‘lost' feudal era? In what way was he different from Fukuno Shichiroemon, Miura Yojiemon, or Akiyama Shirobei Yoshitaki—all also representative of this ‘lost' era? Is Amdur making of Takeda an Achilles, the fictional product of an age that never really existed outside the imagination of the famous individual or individuals who composed the epic poem about him? To what extent does Takeda's ‘almost unimaginable skill' rely on the stories told about him, in much the same way that Ueshiba Morihei's legendary exploits appear to depend on who told the stories about him (Shioda Gozo's version vs. Ueshiba Kisshomaru's vs. John Stevens')? It is true that many individuals ‘enrolled' as Takeda's students, but to what extent were they simply following a fashion in the martial arts of the time, in much the same way that some thousands of aikido students have taken part in the training seminars of the present aikido Doshu? These students, too, ‘enrolled' in the training courses and their names are there as a public record. Just as one could search the enrollment books to find Takeda Sokaku's repeat students, so also, one could search the files of various aikido organizations to find the repeat students at Ueshiba Moriteru's training seminars. A further, separate, question would then arise about what both sets of repeat students actually learned from attending these courses, for it would be foolish to deny that Doshu's courses are attended, as Takeda's certainly were, by experienced martial artists who had specific reasons for their repeat attendance at the seminars.

Amdur then lists the paradoxes: despite all the interviews, there is much that we do not know about Takeda, the history of his art, his teachers and especially the period in his own life between his late teens (around 1876) and his emergence as a teacher around the turn of the century. To this reviewer, this last point is of crucial importance for any discussion about Takeda's alleged internal power / skills. The paradoxes lead to questions: very important questions, that take up much of the opening pages of this chapter. The final question brings the discussion back to Takeda's family:

"What if, however, it [sc. an older tradition or secret art of Daito-ryu] was right in the open all along? If it were a family art, would it necessarily have a history as neat and pristine as is commonly promulgated?" (HIPS, p. 56.)

Rather than treat the history of Daito-ryu as the continuous history of a single art, Amdur follows the more sensible course of examining the various arts that lay at the roots of Daito-ryu and influenced Takeda's own development. First, however, he discusses a few important issues.

Starting with the Myths
Following in the footsteps of many traditional Japanese, Takeda Tokimune traces the roots of the Japanese art that his father practiced to the Kojiki. Apparently, a battle between two deities involved a form of grappling. Some explanation of the general context of this encounter was previously given in Transmission Inheritance, Emulation Column 8. Amaterasu O mikami decided to send Masakatsu a katsu down from heaven to rule the Land of the Plentiful Reed Plains, but encountered serious opposition from many "unruly earthly deities". Various heavenly deities were sent to subdue the latter without success and eventually two more deities were dispatched. They were Take-mika-zuchi-no-kami (who came into existence when Izanagi slew the fire deity) and Ame-no-tori-fune-no kami (the bird-boat deity). They arrived at a beach in Izumo, unsheathed a sword tern hands long, stood it upside down upon the crest of the waves and sat cross-legged on the tip. In this curious posture, they asked O-kuni-nushi-no-kami, the doyen of the earthly deities, what he intended to do about Amaterasu's order that the land be ruled by her offspring. This earthly deity craftily passed on the question to one of his sons, who was "amusing himself" at Cape Miho. This son urged his father to accept the order, but another of O-kuni-nushi-no-kami's sons, named Take-mi-na-kata-no-kami, took a different view. For those who are studying Japanese and want to test their reading skills, here is the modified kanbun text:

(『古事記 上代歌謡』日本古典文学全集, Vol 1, pp. 122-123. The first character of つかみ批ぎて in the penultimate line is not in my computer's dictionary. It is composed of 扌on the left, while on the right is the character common to the following: 隘, 溢, and 鎰.)

I have given the kanbun text to emphasize the extreme difficulty of making a commentary, for practical every other Japanese martial art could claim its origin from this passage, especially after Motoori Norinaga had written his Kojiki-den. Tokimune prefers to see in the references to the ice, sword and young reed the fundamentals of internal power: a powerful grip and the ability to deal with a powerful grip: Aiki in-yo ho: "the system of internal power development and subtle technique that form the underpinnings of Daito-ryu." (HIPS. p. 57.) The episode does not appear in the Nihon shoki and scholars of the Kojiki prefer to see the encounter as a later addition: an example of ritual litigation for settling disputes, as sumo, apparently, originally was. Of course, there was a political aspect to the contest. Take-mika-zuchi-no-kami won. He had to win otherwise Amaterasu the Sun Goddess would have been embarrassed in the extreme. In the way it is described (by O no Yasumaro, the Yamato scribe who compiled the Kojiki), Take-mi-na-kata-no-kami, who was strong enough to handle giant boulders, comes out of the contest extremely badly. He runs away, is pursued and cornered, begs for his life, and gladly cedes the land to Amaterasu. Another scholar, Matsumura Takeo, sees in the encounter a local struggle for control of the Suwa region (in present-day Nagano) between the original inhabitants of Izumo, who worshipped Take-mi-na-kata-no-kami, and the Yamato immigrants, who worshipped Take-mika-zuchi-no-kami. He adds that the two clans were later amalgamated. (Cited in Philippi, Kojiki, p. 132.)

What is not clear from this Kojiki account is that the encounter marks the beginning of a specific Japanese martial art known as Daito-ryu. However, Takeda Tokimune claimed that the waza shown in the account was the indeed beginning of an unbroken line that continued down through the ages right up to his father Sokaku. He further claimed to have seen secret documents, kept at the Ise shrine, showing this. The problem is that Tokimune never specified who else, possibly apart from his father, had seen the documents, so it is impossible to corroborate his claim. If these documents are anything like the secret Takeuchi documents, allegedly shown to Ogasawara Koji and Nakazono Mutsuru and ‘irrefutably proving' the existence of an entire secret civilization (which possibly came from outer space, as one commentator on the Takeuchi documents has suggested), then Amdur's skepticism is well placed. The whole episode shows the essence of Daito-ryu as Takeda Tokimune believed this to be, rather than any specific waza actually performed by the two deities.

It's A Lot like Dancing
Takeda Tokimune claims that Daito-ryu was founded by Shinra Saburo Minamoto no Yoshimitsu, who incidentally founded the Takeda clan. Yoshimitsu apparently practiced sumo and played music when traditional dances were performed at court and noted the similarities between the movements of dancers (showing elegance and suppleness, with a certain formlessness) and "formalized the secret techniques of aiki". Despite the differences between dance and martial arts, there is an assumed commonality in the training involved. Amdur suggests that,

"Were one able to discover that the training methods of bugaku bear any relationship to those used to train practitioners of Japanese jujutsu, particularly Daito-ryu, it would be a magnificent coup. It would not necessarily prove Tokimune's claim explicitly, but it would establish that there was a common thread of body knowledge, running from Central Asia through to Japan and the birth of Japanese culture." (HIPS, pp. 59-60.)

Amdur adds a footnote briefly explaining the evolution of bugaku (舞楽: note that the character for gaku means ‘music', not ‘study', which is 学 or 學), but does not give any sources. I think that the relationship of dance to the martial arts needs to be seen in the context of the general development of Japanese dance generally and some research has been done in this sphere. The following paragraphs from an essay by Rupert Cox give some indication. (The paragraphs have been shortened, with references omitted.)

"Towards the end of the Heian Period, the theory of Buddhist self-cultivation (shugyo) was incorporated into the practice and appreciation of the arts. One area where this continuity is clear…is the changing use and value of the quality of yugen (幽玄). The origins of yugen are in Tendai Buddhism where it means ‘difficult' in the sense of profound, distant or obscure, but as an aesthetic value in waka poetry and noh / nogaku theatre around the end of the twelfth century, its meaning changed. The poet Fujiwara Shunzei (1114-1204) was the to treat it as an aesthetic effect, ‘derived from the sense of longing for an unseen world, or sometimes a sense of wonder at the innate mystery of things', and he drew directly on sources from Tendai Buddhism to do so. This was a merging of the methods and goals of self-cultivation and of the literary arts. …The literary aesthetic yugen was later changed again and applied, along with other terms from Zen like keiko (practice) to noh theatre and its repertoire of bodily movement by the noh playwright and theoretician Zeami." (Cox, "Is there a Japanese way of playing?", Joy Hendry and Massimo Raveri, Eds, Japan at Play: The ludic and the logic of power, pp. 173-174.)

"For Zeami, the relationship between the ‘practice' (keiko) of noh and its actual theatrical performance was similar to a monk's practice and realization of enlightenment (satori). At the base of this merging of methods of Buddhist self-cultivation with different artistic genres was a view of skill (myoyo 妙用, waza 業, 技) not simply as a technique but as a spiritual phenomenon. The result of this … was that skill was even thought identical to study (gaku 学) as something which leads to a self-awareness penetrating the very core of one life in the world. In other words, to study any art form like poetry or noh is also to practice a skill with spiritual ends. It is described metaphorically as do, or ‘the way'. The idea of do in the arts is positioned in time and space as a path (道 do/michi). On this ‘path'/'way', through the skillful performance of prescribed actions, one undergoes physical and ideally spiritual change…" (ibid.)

"But it is not possible to progress along this way through trying to possess skill as a form of knowledge. Principles of knowledge based on practical experience are ‘rules without rules' (無規定的規定: mu-kiteiteki-kitei), which when they are embodied by the master in performance are called junsui keiken (純粋経験) or unconditioned ‘pure experience'. According to this theory, one can only ‘know' about any of the arts through the experience of doing them and becoming skilled. It should not be possible to articulate the experience in anything other than the artistic forms (katachi 形)of that skill, which in the case of the way of tea, for example, is characterized by the physical properties of the expert body and the objects used in performance." (ibid.)

There is much to question even in this small extract and the whole essay deserves careful study. However, this discussion by Cox (who happens to practice Shorinji kempo) suggests that it is perhaps a mistake to begin with the general phenomenon of the martial arts and then, in order to find an explanation for the internal training involved, to work backwards to arrive at some earlier theory of shugyo. This is putting the cart some way behind the horse. It is far better to go back to the origins and begin with the general theory of shugyo as a unified system of mind-body training given by its main exponent in Japan. Kukai left detailed explanations of what shugyo actually involves and these explanations are not restricted to the martial arts. We can then work forwards, to see how this concept of shugyo elaborated by Kukai was embodied in various traditional arts, including noh (like kagura, an old form of dance with popular roots) and sado and certainly in the martial arts. The discourses of Zeami on noh and Sen no Rikyu on sado afforded an explanatory model that was then applied to the other arts, including martial arts. The writings of Zeami, especially, are of great importance for explanations of what the actors actually do on the stage and how they train. If anything, the training required of noh actors is at least as demanding as that of jujutsu practitioners. Zeami (1363-1443), like Minamoto no Yoshimitsu (1045-1127), was relatively late and served at the Emperor's court long after the cultural infusions into Japanese dance from China and Korea actually began. These infusions occurred around the same that Kukai was teaching the Japanese about the kind of shugyo practiced in China.

To be continued.

Reading
This concluding section (mainly covering books rather than articles, and books written mainly in English) is intended to supplement the discussion of Amdur's book.
NOTE (4): Hidden in Plain Sight can be obtained only from Edgework. Purchasing details can be found at www.edgework/info.

0. General
The revised edition of Thomas Green's martial arts encyclopedia is essential background reading for many of the topics covered in this review: Thomas A. Green and Joseph Svinth (Eds.), Martial Arts in Global Perspective, two volumes, forthcoming, ABC-CLIO. Actually, those who have the earlier edition (Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia, 2001, ABC-CLIO) can profitably compare the older articles with the new ones.
On a topic with very close connections to the martial arts and ‘internal' training: what is termed ‘situated cognition' has spawned a vast literature. I myself initially approached this subject from studying the philosophy of mind and language. More closely related to the martial arts was an encounter with Akuzawa Minoru Sensei of the Aunkai, and the more recent practice of a type of body-work called Rolfing (named after Dr Ida Rolf). As a philosopher, I have also been studying metaphor, especially the metaphors used to discuss waza, ‘intent', and ‘internal movements'. In connection with situated cognition, four important names are George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Shaun Gallagher, and Raymond W Gibbs: Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, 1987, Chicago U P; George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, 1999, Basic Books; Shaun Gallagher, How the Body Shapes the Mind, 2005, Oxford U P; Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science, 2008, Routledge; Raymond W Gibbs, Jr., Embodiment and Cognitive Science, 2005, Cambridge U P; Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, 2007, Chicago U P. There is also a very stimulating book written by a scholar of Chinese: Edward Slingerland: What Science Offers the Humanities: Integrating Body and Culture, 2008, Cambridge U P. Also from the same publisher is an introductory text: Philip Robins and Murat Aydede (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, 2009, Cambridge U P. An earlier work on classical medicine is also relevant: Shigehisa Kuriyama, The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine, 2002, Zone Books.
The martial history of Japan needs to be considered in relation to the general history of China, Japan, and Korea. Essential background reading here are the volumes published by Columbia University in a series called, Introduction to Asian Civilizations: William Theodore de Barry and Irene Bloom (Eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition, Second Edition, Volume I, 1999, Columbia U P; Peter H Lee and William Theodore de Barry (Eds.), Sources of Korean Tradition, Volume I, 1997, Columbia U P; William Theodore de Barry, Donald Keene, George Tanabe and Paul Varley (Eds.), Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, Volume I, 2001, Columbia U P.
Though somewhat ‘monumental' in style and character (one effect of far too long a gestation period before final publication), the Cambridge histories are also important. The Cambridge History of China starts with the Ch'in Empire (221 BCE), but there is now a very good ‘preparatory' volume: Michael Lowe and Edward L Shaughnessy (Eds.) Cambridge History of Ancient China, From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., 1999, Cambridge U P. The six volumes of the Cambridge History of Japan have all appeared, but the remaining early volumes of the Cambridge History of China are appearing at a very slow rate.
A new six-volume history of imperial China (that is, from 221 BCE to 1912 CE) has also been appearing. It is less broad in scope than the Cambridge histories, but also less encumbered by the gravitas—and the glacial rate of publication—that Cambridge brings to writing history. All the five volumes that have so far appeared (the last is due in 2010) are relevant to Amdur's book: Timothy Brook (General Editor,) History of Imperial China, 2007-2010, Belknap Press, Harvard U P.
Chinese archaeology is also covered in two volumes, deftly written or edited by the late K Chang: Kwang-chih Chang, The Archeology of Ancient China, 4th edition, 1988, Yale U P; Kwang-chih Chang and Xu Pingfang (Eds), The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective, 2005, Yale U P.
Another ‘monumental' series on the history of China are the volumes published under the general editorship of the late Joseph Needham. Some volumes contain extended discussion on concepts that are crucial for any discussion on ‘internal' power: Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Volumes I, II, VII, 1954- 2001, Cambridge U P.
Along with the study of Ueshiba Morihei's writings in the original Japanese, I myself have found the study of Chinese history a major revelation. Though out of date, Needham's volumes, in particular, cast much light on the origins of concepts like ki and kokyu that are crucial to aikido. This study strongly countered a tendency, very common in Japan, for the Japanese martial arts to be considered sui generis. Just as the relationship between Daito-ryu and aikido is often downplayed, so, too, is the relationship between Chinese martial culture and its Japanese offspring. Some Japanese go one further and deny this relationship, claiming, for example, that secret Japanese kana actually existed long before the Chinese characters from which they were derived. Earlier columns have shown that the tendency for Japanese to deny that their culture has any subordinate relationship with Chinese culture, or to claim that this culture had had a deleterious effect on the development of ‘true' Japanese culture, has a very long history. So having an overview of the whole span of Chinese history—including the long history of intercourse between the two cultures—is a useful antidote to this tendency.

Amdur's Chapters:1. The Chinese Connection with JapanJapan in the Chinese Dynastic Histories by Tsunoda and Goodrich is out of print and difficult to obtain. However, J Edward Kidder has produced a new translation of the Wei shi, along with much other interesting material on Himiko and Yamatai: J Edward Kidder, Himiko and Japan's Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai, 2007, Hawai‘i U P.
Essential background reading for the ‘Mongolian Horse Riders' theory is a new work on the domestication of horses and the origin of the Indo-European languages: David W Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, 2007, Princeton U P. An earlier work by William Wayne Farris also discusses this theory, first produced by Namio Egami in 1948. In his notes Farris cites all the scholarly discussion for and against the theory: William Wayne Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Archeology of Ancient Japan, 1998, Hawai‘i U P.
Shinto, like aikido, comes in many flavors, both in regard to what it actually is and in regard to what is written about it. Apart from reading through the early myths, recounted in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, probably the best book to start with is Jean Herbert's, Shinto: At the Fountainhead of Japan (1967, George Allen and Unwin). Like Tsunoda's book, this, also, has long been out of print and is difficult to obtain. However, Herbert's book received a scathing review from Carmen Blacker, a doyenne of Shinto studies, and her review is some indication of the general volatility of studies on Shinto. (Carmen Blacker, in her Collected Writings, 2000, pp. 333-337.) William Gleason, in his book discussed in my Transmission, Inheritance and Emulation Column 15, quite often cites another book on Shinto, written in 1935 by J W T Mason (The Meaning of Shinto, 2003, Tenchi Press). Mason starts from the concept of ‘Japan's creative spirit' and goes on from there.
These works need to be balanced by an important article written by the late Kuroda Toshio. "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religions" was originally published in the Journal of Japanese Religions and has been reprinted in a collection of essays: Mark R Mullins, Shimazono Susumu, Paul L Swanson (Eds), Religion & Society in Modern Japan, 1993, Asian Humanities Press. An indispensable book on the history of Shinto is a collection of essays edited by Inoue Nobutaka: Shinto — A Short History, 1998, Routledge Curzon.
Contemporary Shinto is covered by two studies by the same author: John K Nelson: A Year in the Life of Shinto Shrine, 1996, U of Washington Press; Enduring Identities: The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan, 2000, Hawai‘i U P.
Another book, starting from ‘concepts' and proceeding to ‘history', is an introduction by Thomas P Kasulis: Shinto: The Way Home, 2004, Hawai‘i U P.
Kasulis has also translated a work on shugyo by the Japanese scholar Yasuo Yuasa. It is unfortunate that it is an ‘edited' translation, with some important sections omitted. In doing the editing Yuasa has made unwarranted presumptions about the capability of the ‘western mind' to understand arcane Japanese concepts: The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory, Translated by Nagatomo Shigenori and T Kasulis, 1987, SUNY: 湯浅泰雄, 『身体論』, 1990, 講談社; The Body, Self-Cultivation and Ki-Energy, Translated by Nagatomo Shigenori and Monte S Hull, 1993, SUNY: 湯浅泰雄, 『気・修行・身体』, 1986, 平河出版社; Yuasa has also written a popular book on ki: 湯浅泰雄, 『気とは何か』, 1991, NHK.
Those who wish to explore further Amdur's five reasons why internal power/skills are not more readily available should read a series of entertaining books written by Glen Morris: Path Notes of an American Ninja Master, 1993, North Atlantic Books; Shadow Strategies of an American Ninja Master, 1996, Frog; Martial Arts Madness: Light and Dark in the Esoteric Martial Arts, 1998, Frog.
Adolphson's work on the warrior monks owes a debt to previous studies made by Karl Friday, G Cameron Hurst III and Thomas Conlon: Mikael J Adolphson, The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers and Warriors in Premodern Japan, 2000, Hawai‘i U P; The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha: Monastic Warriors and Sohei in Japanese History, 2007, Hawai‘i U P.; Karl F Friday, Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Japan, 1992, Stanford U P; Karl F Friday with Seki Humitake, Legacies of the Sword; The Kashima-Shinryu and Samurai Martial Culture, 1997, Hawai‘i U P; Karl F Friday, Samurai, Warfare, and the State in Early Medieval Japan, 2004, Routledge; The First Samurai: The Life and Legend of the Warrior Rebel Taira Masakado, 2008, John Wiley; G Cameron Hurst III, Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery, 1998, Yale U P; and especially, Thomas D Conlon, State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century Japan, 2003, Michigan U P.
The generally murky nature of the Chinese origins of jujutsu might not be so clear from the speculative clarity of Amdur's discussion of the main strands of jujutsu in Japan. The articles by William Bodiford, Lance Gatling and Stanley Henning in the ABC-CLIO encyclopedias (see above) are indispensable for general stage setting. Those who wish to probe further will need to read the Japanese texts and ancillary studies. The Japanese text of the Heiho Okugisho / Hidensho I used for this review essay was published in 2007 by Keibunsha: 山本勘助,「兵法秘伝書」Japanese works on Yamamoto include: 江宮隆之,『山本勘助とは何者か』, 2006, 祥伝社; 上野晴朗 萩原三雄, 『山本勘助のすべて』, 新人物往来社. I have also consulted some of the works cited by Amdur: 本朝武芸小伝 / 日夏繁高; 小松原濤,『陳元贇の研究』, 1972, 雄山閣出版.

2. The History of Daito-ryu
The life of Takeda Sokaku has to be seen in the general cultural context of the time. Thus, the social and political upheavals that accompanied the Meiji Restoration in 1868 need to be understood, if only to make sense of the considerable cultural gap between Takeda Sokaku, Ueshiba Morihei, his most famous student, and Kano Jigoro. There are general histories, but little in the way of the history of ideas, or general studies of social history, such that, for example, we can place in a general cultural context the fact that Takeda virtually refused to be educated by his father. Ueshiba Morihei's education also stopped early, but the consequences were quite different for both men. Although Amdur does not mention this in his chapter on Takeda, Deguchi Onisaburo was also unique and an anachronism, but not at all in the same way. Like Takeda, Deguchi also "embodied a lost era." The evolution of the martial arts during the whole period from the closing years of the Tokugawa shogunate right through to the postwar reconstruction of Japan after World War II, needs close study if the main characters in Amdur's book are to be fleshed out and seen in a wider context. Various aspects of this evolution have been studied in great detail, but piecemeal and the whole story has not yet been presented in a single volume. Wiley-Blackwell have been publishing a series of ‘companions' and the volume on Japanese history is a good place to start: William M Tsutsui, Ed., A Companion to Japanese History, 2009, Wiley-Blackwell. Donald Keene and Marius Jansen have produced magisterial volumes on this period in whole or in part. Like the Cambridge histories, they are rather ‘heavy' reading, but have extensive bibliographies: Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852 -- 1912, 2002, Columbia U P; Marius B Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, 2000, Belnap, Harvard U P. Shorter and lighter reading is Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan from Tokugawa Times to the Present, 2003, Oxford U P. Two collections of essays are indispensable: Stephen Vlastos, Ed., Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, 1998, California U P; Alexander Bennett, Ed., Budo Perspectives, 2005, Kendo World. To give a relevant example, the essay by Inoue Shun in the Vlastos volume should be compared with that by Murata Naoki in the Bennett volume. Both essays deal with Kano Jigoro and the birth of the Kodokan, but their approaches are almost diametrically opposed and neither touches on the issues raised by Amdur in his book.
Materials relating to Noh include translations of actual plays and also of Zeami's discourses: Kunio Komparu, Noh: The Noh Theater, Principles and Perspectives, 1983, Weatherhill; J Thomas Rimer and Yamazaki Masakazu, Trans, On the Art of No Drama: The Major Treatises of Zeami, 1984, Princeton U P; Zeami: Performance Notes, Translated by Tom Hare, 2008, Columbia U P. The following work discusses Noh as an established Japanese art, like jujutsu and aikido, and comes closest to approaching the issues discussed by Amdur: Thomas Blenman Hare, Zeami's Style: The Noh Plays of Zeami, 1986, Stanford U P. Issues relating to bugaku are discussed in Joy Hendry and Massimo Raveri, Eds, Japan at Play: The ludic and the logic of power, 2002, Routledge. Cox has supplemented his essay in this work with a book: Zen Arts: An Anthropological Study of the Culture of Aesthetic Form in Japan, 2003, Routledge Curzon.
For Takeda Sokaku's musha shugyo activities, a good start would be the studies of samurai and medieval Japanese warfare by Stephen Turnbull, G Cameron Hurst III, Karl Friday and, especially, Thomas Conlon. An interesting perspective on the Aizu clan and the Boshin civil war is afforded by some memoirs: Yamakawa Kikue, Women of the Mito Domain: Recollections of Samurai Family Life, Translated and Edited with an Introduction by Kate Wilkman Nakai, 2001, Stanford U P.
There are two sets of items that are essential reading concerning Takeda Sokaku and Daito-ryu. The first set are the interviews made by Stanley Pranin. They have been published by Aiki-News in Japanese and English: 『竹田惣角と大東流合気柔術』, 1992; Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu: Conversations with Daito-ryu Masters, 1996, Aiki-News. In fact, the entire archive of articles and interviews created by Stanley Pranin at Aikido Journal merits deep and repeated study. All the back issues of Aiki News and Aikido Journal are available on a CD-ROM that comes with a subscription to Aikido Journal.
The second set of items are the interviews and other material made by Kimura Tatsuo relating to Sagawa Yukiyoshi, another of Takeda's top students: 『透明な力 不世出の武術家 佐川幸義』, 1995, 講談社; Transparent Power: A Secret Teaching Revealed: The Extraordinary Martial Artist Yukiyoshi Sagawa, 2009, MAAT Press; 『合気修得への道 佐川幸義先生に就いた二十年』: Discovering Aiki: My 20 Years with Yukiyoshi Sagawa Sensei, 1995, Aiki News. Another student, Takahashi Masaru, has produced an account of Sagawa and his training: 『高橋賢, 佐川幸義先生伝 大東流合気の真実』, 2007, 福昌堂.
It is not sufficiently realized that Ueshiba Morihei practiced Daito-ryu right up until the early 1940s. At least, this is what one of his students understood. In fact, the transformation of Ueshiba's training from Daito-ryu to aikido is one of the main themes of Amdur's book. Again, Stanley Pranin has interviewed many of Ueshiba's students and has published some of these in English: Stanley Pranin, Ed, Aikido Masters: Prewar Students of Morihei Ueshiba, 1993, Aiki-News. Unfortunately, Pranin was never able to interview Admiral Isamu Takeshita, who was a bridge between Ueshiba and Takeda Sokaku. Takeshita kept diaries for much of his life and some portions of these relate directly to his budo training. A few individuals possess copies of portions of these diaries, but originals are kept in the National Diet Library in Tokyo. The sections dealing with Takeshita's bujutsu training have not, to my knowledge, been published.

Peter Goldsbury (b. 28 April 1944). Aikido 6th dan Aikikai, Emeritus Professor of Hiroshima University, specializing in philosophy and comparative culture. B. in UK. Began aikido as a student and practiced at various dojo. Became a student of Mitsunari Kanai at the New England Aikikai in 1973. After moving back to the UK in 1975, trained in the Ryushinkan Dojo under Minoru Kanetsuka. Also trained with K Chiba on his frequent visits to the UK. Moved to Hiroshima, Japan, in 1980 and continued training with the resident Shihan, Mazakazu Kitahira, 8th dan Also trained regularly with Seigo Yamaguchi, Hiroshi Tada, Sadateru Arikawa and Masatake Fujita, both in Hiroshima and at the Aikikai Hombu. Was elected Chairman of the IAF in 1998. With two German colleagues, opened a small dojo in Higashi-Hiroshima City in 2001, which is now independent and directly affiliated to the Aikikai Hombu. Instructed at Aiki Expo 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I'm pleased to be able to be the first to respond to this article. Although the following may sound over-effusive, it is not. I'm honored that Peter has chosen to give my work such detailed attention. I will start by saying that I agree with most of his criticisms of the work. More rigor is needed, particularly in the sections on China - unfortunately, I am not the man to do it. I wanted to strike a first blow, so to speak, so that those with the abilities to do such research would be either inspired or goaded, as the case may be. Were my writing to be classified in military terms - I'm a scout - the infantry needs to follow up.
At any rate, I shall respond to some specific points in TIE, 16, to see if I can help clarify some points I may have left unclear.
1. The distinction between internal and external is a) not hard and fast, b) not confined, as the common cliche goes, to Taoist-based arts = internal and Buddhist based arts = external. There are a lot of mysteries here - most of the texts that came to Japan were, I am told, southern Shaolin, which works the body in certain specific ways - using more tension/release and forceful methods than such arts as t'ai chi. How to explain accounts I've received that Daito-ryu tends to follow some of the same principles found in T'ai chi or bagua (NOT waza - please don't go there! - principle written language, things can be discovered more than once. One of the tasks of future researchers is to tease out what exercises come from what provenance - AND, what effects and skills do they produce.
2. Re sohei and martial systems - my understanding of the sohei is that they were more ruffians and thugs than a) monks b) trained warriors. Furthermore, the bushi, too, during most of the heyday of the sohei did not have the kind of organized training methods we refer to as martial ryu. There was surely battle field tactics, but kata were a development from probably the 1400's onwards. At any rate, one gets the sense that the sohei were essentially much like pub doormen all go-up in robes and handed weapons. It is probable that the real development of internal training took place in peacetime (Edo period) rather than before.
3. Re Heiho Okugisho - my apologies for not being more explicit. The inclusion of that essay had several purposes - to demonstrate that Chinese knowledge was widely disseminated; through the skill of Chris Laughran and further help from Prof Wm. Bodiford, I was able to do what I, personally, could not have done with any other text - examined it in some depth. I was thereby able to introduce a discussion about the primordial ryu (which is important information in the rest of the book). Finally, to be fully honest - it gave me an opportunity to knock down a straw dog - the book has been cited as proof that the Takeda clan was doing Daito-ryu way back when.
4.My thesis regarding Chen Genpin really rests on one point - there was no other reason why three seasoned warriors, already skilled at grappling, would have much interest in a foreigner. It would be like several Olympic Greco-Roman champions enthralled with the accounts of a bookish Russian talking about a native wrestling style called Sambo, which he'd seen but never done. Everything follows from the point that he had to have something to grab their attention - and shuaijiao, by itself, is not so different from sumo or other belt wrestling to grab the attention so.
5.In the discussion on Yoshin-ryu and the caveat that I don't make an adequate distinction between internal and external - although Toby Threadgill and I are close, I've not felt what he does. Watched it, but haven't felt it. If, as I'm told, the elements of Yoshin-ryu "internal training" come from southern China, then they will, very likely, be that mix of external and internal methods - a compliment of building muscle to function in specialized ways AND training connective tissue and the nervous system.
6. RE numbers and the effect of judo on jujutsu. I believe that most jujutsuka, even in it's heyday, were not masters of internal strength, any more than most t'ai chi players are of very high level. My point is that samurai were 5% of the population in the Edo period. And jujutsu also filtered down to the commoners. And esoteric training was also there in kenjutsu schools (see Kuroda Tetsuzan for a modern example). Just to arbitrarily assign a figure, if the population of jujutsuka was 5,000,000 and 1/10 of one percent were of UEshiba's level, that's still 5000 at masters level. It was probably far more.
7. Re Takeda - and his "uniqueness" - Akiyama, Miura, Fukuno were all from earlier era. The comments about Takeda in that newspaper article about him (Ima Bokuden(?) illustrates the wonder in which he was regarded. But he was not typical of those earlier men - most bushi did not display the florid suspicion and paranoia. But unfamiliar with bushi in the 20th century, people imagined him to be typical. I think a good counterweight image would be the description of one man's grandfather in Memories of Silk and Straw. The grandfather, an old bushi and daimyo's executioner, was a man of absolute severity and discipline. For example, he would take his grandson duck hunting. He took a matchlock, a small metal ladle and a piece of lead. At the lakeside, he make a small fire, melt the lead in the ladle, make a single bullet and kill a single duck and then return home. This severity and discipline is, I believe, far more typical of the true high-level bushi.

To be clear, none of these responses are in any way, in defense. They are points of clarification. Once again, it is a joy to be treated with such gravity, and clarity.
Ellis Amdur

Peter I must add my thanks to the others. What a wonderful gift for us all to take in at this time of giving. As usual with your TIE installments, it will take a good deal of work to digest this holiday meal. Thanks again.

A Safe, Joyful, and Peaceful Holiday Season to us all, and a New Year that is ripe with possibilities.

Again a superlative contribution. The archeological expedition will bring back some archetypal familial traits -- but the essence of the thing still lies in critical observation of the physical phenomenon itself. In other words, the review nailed the number one question:

Quote:

1. What, exactly, do these skills consist of?

What, indeed? This is an objective question -- with an objective answer -- though perhaps not a simplistic one.

To some extent, "it-has-to-be-felt" (IHTBF) is true, but also, because sensory perception is by nature premised on certain assumptions in the neural processing of sense information - it needs to be connected to the objective circumstance of the perception. Perceptual assumptions can often diverge from the objective circumstance (motion sickness, anyone?) creating a sense of something that lacks objective basis in fact. A martial advantage if used affirmatively; and a martial disaster if acted upon unknowingly. And there is no substitute for a conceptual understanding -- of both the perceptual and objective elements -- in order to first grasp how to reconcile and apply such a divergence when it occurs, and then further how to prompt and employ it at need.

Objective analysis of -- "What it is" -- is therefore absolutely necessary and not merely a "nice-to-have." Kano's example is one to follow. Feeling something subjectively and knowing objectively what is being felt are BOTH required complements of an adequate understanding. Otherwise, one can become lost in the genealogical detail of transmission of a host of disconnected elements -- or lost in forms of movement divorced from the coherent objective principle they were meant to convey. The objective connection is the key.

Amdur nails the elements of the problem but just barely misses their one common thread.

Quote:

HIPS Excerpt wrote:

Amdur notes five connected reasons why knowledge and acquisition of these skills cannot be taken as a given in present-day Daito-ryu and aikido: (1) the culture of secrecy; (2) abuse of the traditional teacher-centered relationship in the art; (3) lack of peer pressure; (4) the ‘cult of the Sensei'; (5) the use of tricks that serve to obscure the lack of skills.

The common thread is plain. There is no objective definition of the subject matter -- if there were then the truth would have half a chance to be known when it is seen or felt.

Each of the points noted is a source of "obscuring the truth" and all for various subjective reasons. Therefore, subjective approaches to "feeling" "the thing" should be inherently suspected -- which clouds the otherwise wholesome and empirical-sounding recommendation of IHTBF -- for without that definitive objective concept, one cannot trust one's lying eyes or proprioceptors against all manner of such psychosocial or ego-driven trickery. Examples of this are too numerous to bother recounting -- and throughout all martial arts.

Quote:

HIPS excerpt wrote:

"They presented a kind of power quite unlike that of a weight lifter or other strong man, this power so out of the ordinary that it is referred to by its own terms: ‘internal strength, aiki (‘unified energy'), or kokyu (‘breath power')." ... "Some using minimal movements, express unbelievable energy, as if detonating a controlled explosion in a small space. Others exert an inexorable force, like a boulder tipping over on top of you. And still others disappear, a ghostlike absence when you are sure you have grabbed them, but you [are] feeling as if you have clutched smoke or [are] stepping into a void." ...
"A so-called external martial art uses very sophisticated methods to enable an individual to use their body at the peak of its natural reflexes and potential. An internal martial art, on the other hand, attempts to transform the body's natural response to force—and at a higher level, to allegedly change the way one's own body actually functions." (Extracts all quoted from pp.13-14.)

Sure would be nice to have a clear objective concept that encompassed those three seemingly divergent aspects of this physical phenomenon now, wouldn't it?

4.My thesis regarding Chen Genpin really rests on one point - there was no other reason why three seasoned warriors, already skilled at grappling, would have much interest in a foreigner. It would be like several Olympic Greco-Roman champions enthralled with the accounts of a bookish Russian talking about a native wrestling style called Sambo, which he'd seen but never done. Everything follows from the point that he had to have something to grab their attention - and shuaijiao, by itself, is not so different from sumo or other belt wrestling to grab the attention so.

Frankly, I suspect this episode with Chen Gempin (Chen Yuan Yun) is probably very much like a number of well-credentialed present-day martial artists getting a good feel/idea of basic parameters of internal strength. In fact, I'd carry the comparison even a bit further, using Aikido as an example. Aikido derives from "ki" skills that are recorded on film as being done by the founder, yet many (the majority, I'd posit) of current practitioners have never acquired these skills as the founder had them and some are now busily trying to install their current interpretations *back* into Aikido. Personally, I suspect that there may be an aspect of this in the 3 experts learning from Chen Gempin may have been in the same position of only learning how to do something that may have been in past Japanese martial arts.

The big problem with writing about Japanese history in relation to internal-strength skills is that we can only write in terms of what we personally know. Since a lot of Japanese history is written for the West by people with little or no internal skills, I suspect that the overall view has been badly degraded by a lot of otherwise well-meaning historians. Like the 'expert' in Aikido who has/had no real knowledge of internal skills, the historian is apt to describe Japanese historical internal skills in a very limited and probably inaccurate way. We've all seen what can come of being an expert who has missed something elemental... it happens to history writing quite often, in all fields.

The discussion of dancing reminds me of the story of Ueshiba awarding a 10th dan to a woman dancer. Of course, the initial reaction is to avoid the story because it could be that of a mentally enfeebled Ueshiba doing something for which he is not totally responsible, but on the other hand, he could also have been recognizing that the woman used qi/jin/ki/kokyu skills just as are used in bona fide Aikido. Think about Abe Seiseki's comments about how kokyu strength are basic to real Shodo. In China these types of body skills are common to calligraphy, dance, tea ceremony, and so on. It seems likely that the Japan that imported so much else Chinese could not have missed the inclusion of internal-strength skills in health-exercises, calligraphy, dance, tea ceremony, and so on. My point is that rather than looking at internal-strength skills as a very narrow field, it's a very broad field. Because so many of our published experts (think of all the experts in hand-to-hand combat at the time of Chen Gempin and then consider those 3 warriors) have little knowledge of internal-strength parameters, we have to consider that it's not the time to dig in our heels but more to move forward.

The paper is discussing Misogi training and early in the paper is this comment: It was reportedly during this time that Inoue learned to regulate his breath by concentrating it below his navel

Pooh... that means to me that to whatever degree he progressed later, Inoue learned the essence of ki-building skills that always start with "packing" and pressurizing the 'air pressure' (read "ki") into the abdominal region. Think of Ueshiba's Misogi training in that light.

Cutting short a lot of commentary that is also applicable, let me just note that IMO a lot of these discussions about ki, internal strength, etc., are probably far too narrow and don't recognize the ubiquity and antiquity of these skills/studies. "Kokyu" skills are actually "shakti" in ancient India and "jin" skills in China. Sure, they're kept fairly secret in the how-to's, but even so, they're easily and widely found.

So, like the columns, this review essay is targeted at the thoughtful practitioner of aikido, who takes training very seriously and cares very much about the art, but who also ponders the important questions: questions raised both by the type of training actually practiced by the ‘sensei' and offered in the dojo, and also by the questions raised in this and other Internet forums about the ‘efficacy' of the art. Is there something missing, either that should have been there all along, or that should be practiced additionally, in order to make the aikido training more ‘efficacious', whatever this might mean?

Hello Peter,

I see that you've kept busy. I just wanted to post my thoughts on this small part of your article.

There has been quite a bit of debate for years regarding aikido and its effectiveness. There has also been debates for years regarding aiki, ki, and how either relates to aikido. Since we all know there was a change (not stating good or bad, just that there was) from the founder to his son regarding the martial art, aikido, I'll stick to just focusing on the founder and his vision.

Not wanting, or really having the luxury, to spend a lot of time here, I'll use two people as examples: Tomiki and Ohba.

First, Tomiki. I believe he was a 4th dan in judo when he met Ueshiba. So, by most accounts, Tomiki was competent and skilled. Some even go as far as highly competent and very skilled. But, by at least one account, Ueshiba tossed Tomiki some 60 different ways on their first meeting.

(Just a side note here, but had Kano had internal skills, how likely is it that Tomiki would have been that impressed with Ueshiba to dedicate his life to studying under Ueshiba?)

By this account, we can guess that Ueshiba had skills that were well beyond most skills found in judo. Fast forward to today and how likely is it that 4th dans in judo will be tossed 60 different ways by someone in aikido?

Tomiki himself, after studying with Ueshiba, displayed similar skills. As noted by posts here on Aikiweb about a display that Tomiki gave, Tomiki held out his hand and judo people couldn't throw him.

Add in the actual years that Ueshiba, Tomiki, etc trained before they were very good and you begin to paint a picture of skills that are not among most in the current aikido world.

Second, Ohba. Ohba's example relates to the parameters of just what these skills were used for by Ueshiba. Ueshiba built his martial art with a spiritual vision and very decidedly left out competition (defined as UFC type competition). Ohba, as uke, in the Manchurian demonstration showed that Ueshiba had skills that went outside his spiritual vision.

Quote:

Shigenobu Okumura wrote:

At that time I was a student and I saw this demonstration. The demonstration was as serious as any I have ever seen. I could tell that it was not a prearranged demonstration at all.

Ueshiba was very angry until appeased by the words of Hideo Sonobe, who gave praise. It would appear that Ueshiba's chosen demonstration of how he viewed his art of aikido was ruined by Ohba's very strong and unrehearsed attacks. We know that Ueshiba's main influence for martial training was Daito ryu, so it's not a very big leap to suggest that Ueshiba relied upon his Daito ryu jujutsu, or more likely his Daito ryu aiki no jujutsu skills to handle Ohba's attacks.

So, we can start to see that Ueshiba definitely had the skills, but chose to only show or use certain aspects, or certain subsets, in his vision of aikido.

In conclusion, even if one did have the aiki skills as Ueshiba had, using them in any competition such as the UFC, boxing, etc, would be completely outside the vision of Ueshiba's aikido. Going one step further, I believe that Ueshiba's trimming of the Daito ryu curriculum also removed quite a bit of the underlying jujutsu skills, so that even if one wanted to use aikido in competition, one would be hampered from the start.

However, having said that, one who did have the aiki skills as Ueshiba had, should be able to utilize those skills in those venues (providing the appropriate training is undertaken) and stand out as different from the rest. After all, Ueshiba still learned jujutsu. It wasn't just the aiki skills that made him martially adept.

7. Re Takeda - and his "uniqueness" - Akiyama, Miura, Fukuno were all from earlier era. The comments about Takeda in that newspaper article about him (Ima Bokuden(?) illustrates the wonder in which he was regarded. But he was not typical of those earlier men - most bushi did not display the florid suspicion and paranoia. But unfamiliar with bushi in the 20th century, people imagined him to be typical. I think a good counterweight image would be the description of one man's grandfather in Memories of Silk and Straw. The grandfather, an old bushi and daimyo's executioner, was a man of absolute severity and discipline. For example, he would take his grandson duck hunting. He took a matchlock, a small metal ladle and a piece of lead. At the lakeside, he make a small fire, melt the lead in the ladle, make a single bullet and kill a single duck and then return home. This severity and discipline is, I believe, far more typical of the true high-level bushi.

Hello Ellis,

Many thanks for the comments. I think your choice of words at the very beginning of Chapter 2 suggested to me that you thought that Takeda was typical--and made of basically the same stuff as the three samurai who met Cheng:

"Takeda Sokaku embodied a lost era, a man of single-minded intent and almost unimaginable skill."

Coupled with another sentence, further on:

"...notwithstanding a surfeit of documentary evidence, including interviews with his surviving students, much about Sokaku is still mysterious",

these statements pretty well set out the situation that you aim to illuminate in the Takeda chapter. You seek to preserve Takeda's 'almost unimaginable skill' (and ground it in IS/IT), while at the same time dispelling much of the mystery.

I do not want to say too much about Takeda here, because I am writing TIE 17 and would like to see my discussion of Takeda considered as a whole (time constraints caused a split in my discussion of HIPS Chapter 2: there is more to come). However, my interest in the Takeda chapter centers on the light it casts on Takeda's relationship with Morihei Ueshiba and thus on Kisshomaru Ueshiba's treatment of him in his biography of his father. Your core statements here are on pp. 94-95 of HIPS and the issue for me is the parallelism, if any, between the father-son relationship as exhibited by Sokaku/Tokimune and by Morihei/Kisshomaru. To dismiss the possibility of such a parallel would be foolish, in my opinion, and this is why I focus on Takeda as 'embodying a lost era'. If you substitute a name, you will have:

"Ueshiba Morihei embodied a lost era, a man of single-minded intent and almost unimaginable skill."

Ungraceful word choice on my part. What I meant to say was that Takeda embodied in the imagination of Japanese of the Taisho and early Showa a lost era - although, as I hope I pointed out, he was not, with his florid paranoia and dramatic demonstrations, replete with verbal abuse of his uke, actually typical of men of the period. He emerged from that period - but although rooted in it, was unique.
I do think you are right - Ueshiba, in the Showa period, embodied in people's imagination, in a similar manner, a man of a lost era - more of a "sennin" (mystic/warrior).
Sort of like Tom Mix and Roy Rogers were, in American minds, typical "cowboys."
Rather than getting overly distracted, however, about whether either emerged from a historical or imaginal era, I think your theme of father-son parallelism, between the Takedas and the Ueshiba's is the central issue.
BTW -
I just read Shiba Goro's REMEMBERING AIZU: The Testament of Shiba Goro, a memoir of Aizu after the defeat in the Boshin war. It is such a sad story, including an ethnic cleansing for several years, where many were moved to the north of Japan to an utterly desolate area where survival was almost impossible - many starved. Many of the men spent time in prison camps before being released. I wonder what happened to the Takeda family during that period. Is it possible that Takeda Sokaku was either separated from his family - all or in part - for a few years after the Boshin war, or if the whole family spent some years scrabbling among the rocks of that desolate landscape trying to survive. Who else died in his life during this period?

[snip]
5.In the discussion on Yoshin-ryu and the caveat that I don't make an adequate distinction between internal and external - although Toby Threadgill and I are close, I've not felt what he does. Watched it, but haven't felt it. If, as I'm told, the elements of Yoshin-ryu "internal training" come from southern China, then they will, very likely, be that mix of external and internal methods - a compliment of building muscle to function in specialized ways AND training connective tissue and the nervous system.

Ellis Amdur

Prof. Goldsbury, I'd like to add my thanks to the others'. And of course, thanks (again) to Ellis Amdur for sparking and correlating the many points of discussion coming out of Hidden in Plain Sight.

Ellis, what/who is the source for the statement that "If, as I am told, the elements of Yoshin-ryu 'internal training' come from southern China . . . "?

Is that southern Chinese influence set forth in the documents of Yoshin-ryu? Is it an observation by Toby Threadgill, as the headmaster/teacher of a specific line of Yoshin-ryu? Is it a statement made by a practitioner of either Yoshin-ryu or a southern Chinese martial art . . . or by a casual non-practitioner observer? It is a fairly conclusive and authoritative statement to make, given the general ambiguity of Chinese-to-Japanese influences that HIPS seeks to explore.

Two things: That's what I've been told by Toby Threadgill - AND - Akiyama as well as the founder of Yoshin Koryu, in particular, traveled to Southern China.

Parenthetically, the texts of Chinese military tactics that were disseminated in Japan all antedate any of the texts extant on such arts as t'ai chi, bagua or xingyi. They are, to my understanding, all Shaolin based.

I do not know if Scholar Boxer: Chang Naizhou's Theory Of Internal Martial Arts And The Evolution Of Taijiquan - the translation and commentary by Marnix Wells, was disseminated in Japan at all, and this book was written in the 1700's. Marnix's translation is extremely awkward, sad to say (yin and yang are translated as shady and sunny), and the art that is described is very rare, and one has to imagine what is possibly being talked about. At any rate, this is the first text, as far as I know, that is considered to be about something approaching purely internal training.

Specifics beyond that would require an examination of the training exercises of Yoshin-ryu and a comparison with those of various systems of China. And given the traditional teaching methods which Yoshin-ryu maintains, given the more essential teachings to initiates only, good luck

Two things: That's what I've been told by Toby Threadgill - AND - Akiyama as well as the founder of Yoshin Koryu, in particular, traveled to Southern China.

Ellis, thanks for the clarification. Toby Threadgill's reference alone would have been sufficient. When I posted above, I had spaced on your reference in HIPS to Akiyama's time in southern China (was it Fujian?), or I probably wouldn't have asked the question.

The written "classics" of taiji, xingyi and bagua in all probability date only to the mid- to late-1800s. The oral teaching formulae (or "songs") of taiji and xingyi may be a little older, but how much older is speculative. Chang Naizhou's book, the first book (that I'm aware of) in any language that details specifically internal principles of martial practice, is as you note from the 1700s (for those interested, a capsule summary of Chang's life and a good translation of a short excerpt by Jarek Szymanski can be found at http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/ot...s/CNZbook.html ). Qi Jiguang's book is from the late 1500s and is Shaolin-based. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is, however, substantially older, and antedates the Shaolin Temple by almost a thousand years (and so would not be Shaolin-based),

Although references to martial arts can be found on stele at Songshan and elsewhere, there do not appear to be any extant martial arts writings (manuals, treatises, literature) referencing Shaolin before the late Ming dynasty, i.e., the time when General Qi wrote his manual. It's tempting to speculate that these writings reached Japan almost as fast as they were disseminated in China (a pre-modern analog to being able to buy a DVD of a pirated film before it has finished the first week of its theater run).

The written "classics" of taiji, xingyi and bagua in all probability date only to the mid- to late-1800s. The oral teaching formulae (or "songs") of taiji and xingyi may be a little older, but how much older is speculative. Chang Naizhou's book, the first book (that I'm aware of) in any language that details specifically internal principles of martial practice, is as you note from the 1700s (for those interested, a capsule summary of Chang's life and a good translation of a short excerpt by Jarek Szymanski can be found at http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/ot...s/CNZbook.html ). Qi Jiguang's book is from the late 1500s and is Shaolin-based. Sun Tzu's The Art of War is, however, substantially older, and antedates the Shaolin Temple by almost a thousand years (and so would not be Shaolin-based),

The Mawangdui pictures of Tao-yin (Oh, wait... does that have something to do with the "Tao" aka "Do"?) exercises comes from BCE, making these types of body-skill practices at least that old and probably a lot older. "Shaolin" and "Neijia" have little to do with it.

Zhang Naijou's comments about practicing these skills is only a remaining commentary of and extremely wide and ancient corpus. The fact that much literature has been lost to book-burnings, history-revisions, and so on, has little to do with it... as the Mawangdui materials show.

However, little by little the provincial views of "it's a specialty of Japan" has evolved into "it's a relatively recent development in China" and will soon be "hey, this stuff is far bigger and older than we thought" and gradually will grow into an understanding of why the characteristics of Buddha's body were considered 'special'... yet a part of this whole story. Provincialism withers in the light of history and science.

Oh . . . and it's interesting that you like to quote Ken Cohen after sucker-punching his host and bragging about it.

Where am I quoting Ken Cohen in this thread? Who is Ken Cohen's host? Could you try to stay on topic, please. If you have something extraneous to say, let me know and we'll get together in Seattle so you can discuss it.

Where am I quoting Ken Cohen in this thread? Who is Ken Cohen's host? Could you try to stay on topic, please. If you have something extraneous to say, let me know and we'll get together in Seattle so you can discuss it.

Mike Sigman

hi Mike--

I was referring to a long-ago e-mail you sent. I realized it was irrelevant to this thread, but you apparently still think it might be.

No worries. I should be in Telluride next month, and I'm always happy to talk or do what it takes to reach a mutual understanding. Come and have a drink and tell me where you're coming from.

The caves of Altamira have animal figures stretched out and negative impressions of human handprints and far predate the Dao-yin drawings (note no Dao-yin explanations) at Mawangdui. None of this matters to me . . . not even the grainy films of Ueshiba Morihei. Do you know why? Because Ueshiba clearly did not know why. Or surely he would have taught his son, and his son would have taught his grandson. But he didn't. Or if he tried, it didn't take.

I am concerned with those today who are living and willing to teach and inspire.

1. What, exactly, do these skills consist of?
2. Did Takeda Sokaku possess these skills?
3. If so, how did Takeda Sokaku acquire these skills?
4. Did Takeda Sokaku teach these skills to all his disciples?
5. In particular, did Takeda Sokaku pass on these skills to Ueshiba Morihei?
6. If not, how did Ueshiba Morihei acquire these skills?
7. Did Ueshiba Morihei teach these skills, as part of his training methodology?
8. Did Ueshiba Morihei pass on these skills to all his disciples?
9. Did Ueshiba Morihei pass on these skills to those who claim succession from him: the heads of the schools practicing the various ‘flavors' of aikido, such as Yoseikan or Yoshinkan?
10. Does the acquisition of these skills form part of the teaching/training methodology of postwar aikido, especially the Aikikai?

Bearing in mind that I think the records show that general knowledge/dissemination of these skills and their adjuncts was so wide that the Takeda/Ueshiba story is only a small fragment of the whole, Peter's list reminds me of something that has bothered me for some time and I'd like to hear Peter and/or Ellis's thoughts about it.

At about the time Koichi Tohei was bidding a fond farewell to the home dojo, he had a number of teaching meetings with members of the dojo, attempting to pass on what he thought was critical information, as I understand it. Presumably a lot of this information had to do with internal-strength skills and the impetus had to be Tohei's belief that many of the people training at the home dojo were not getting enough information. This issue has a lot to do with the last four questions in Peter's list.

One of the things that struck me when I first learned about Tohei's "lessons" near the end was how much Tohei's teachings should have affected the level of information that we see in so many western Aikido teachers today. What happened?

Was Tohei's attempt at explication unsuccessful? Or did most of the people who politely attended Tohei's meeting feel that already knew this stuff about "ki" skills? Was there a loyalty question such that many politely attended, but took nothing home because their true teacher was Ueshiba and it would have been politically inexpedient to truly learn anything from Tohei at this juncture? Did the standard ego problems hinder Tohei's teaching attempts? And so on.

However, the fact that Tohei held such meetings indicates that he felt there was something major missing from the teaching of Ueshiba at that time, couldn't we say? So Tohei's actions at that time do a bit toward answering some of the questions that Peter posed, IMO.

I have the whole review of Ellis's book sketched out on my computer and I keep going back to the ten questions--and sum up how I think Ellis deals with them at the end. I think there is a political dimension to the last four questions, based on the fact that you had two de facto centres of aikido training immediately after the war: in Iwama and in Tokyo. Morihei was training mainly in Iwama until the mid-fifties and only gradually came back to Tokyo. It is an interesting question to what extent he was aware of, or participated in, the rising tensions between Tohei and Kisshomaru Ueshiba in Tokyo. I am certain that these tensions extended right to the mat and involved how aikido should be practised and taught.

I'll probably get a bit of flack for this, but I think Tohei's model was flawed. Not that I am dismissing Tohei, his abilities, or anything of that sort. I think what he did at that time was probably the best he could do given the circumstances, but I think that the way that he separated the "ki" from the "martial" was a flawed approach.

It certainly wasn't Tohei's fault, though. I don't think Ueshiba was teaching as he had "pre-war", it's known that Tohei went outside for his abilities, and the dynamic with Ueshiba's son didn't help.

Shifting focus for a moment, let's look back at Ueshiba, Sagawa, Kodo, Okamoto, Kimura, Shioda, Tomiki, etc. Takeda had a system of jujutsu where he taught not only jujutsu techniques, but also aiki. From solo training to paired training to sparring, Takeda passed down his system to several students. All took what they had learned and taught ... Daito ryu jujutsu.

(Worth noting here is that quite a few of these greats took their training to sparring levels. Ueshiba had many challengers. Shioda told stories of using it outside class. Tomiki took it to the Judo world. Etc. One could even formulate a theory that aiki being formless allowed them to use it in any venue. But that's a whole different thread topic.)

Now, some have questioned the actual validity of Ueshiba's teaching "pre-war". Whether he did teach or the students learned elsewhere, it's still pretty much a given that some of those pre-war students received Daito ryu licenses. And that the greats were mostly from the pre-war era. In other words, there was a teaching methodology as built by Takeda.

Some continued with that teaching methodology, such as Sagawa and Kodo. Both went "beyond" (as in trying to surpass their teacher) what they had learned to formulate personal training regimens, but both still kept to an outline of Daito ryu syllabus. Sagawa is famous for noting that he kept things secret until very late in his life and then started teaching "aiki". Kodo seems to have trained at least a couple of students who are adept at "aiki".

When we get to Ueshiba after the war, we find no more "official" Daito ryu, but a modified syllabus created for a special, spiritual purpose. Gone are many of the Daito ryu "tricks" to showcase "aiki". The push test seems to be one of the few to have survived. And after the war, learning "aiki" seems to have been near impossible. Tohei went elsewhere to build internal skills. I think the internal skills were applicable, or close to what Ueshiba was doing, but Tohei lacked that early training environment where jujutsu, aiki jujutsu and aiki no jujutsu were built.

So, I think Tohei's implementation of having a separate training for "ki" and another for "aikido" is flawed. Not that there isn't a separation when doing solo exercises to paired exercises for building aiki, but I think the manner in which it was implemented muddied the water more than it helped. I think it made it harder to understand *how* to merge the two into "aiki no jujutsu" or "takemusu aiki". I don't think it was clearly pointed out, either.

Again, to reiterate, I'm not blaming Tohei in any manner. Nor Kisshomaru. Nor Ueshiba. At that point, Ueshiba was already well on his way to his spiritual vision. Tohei wasn't there when the "pre-war" students were training. And the war changed a lot of things which Kisshomaru had to live through and continue.

I'll probably get a bit of flack for this, but I think Tohei's model was flawed. Not that I am dismissing Tohei, his abilities, or anything of that sort. I think what he did at that time was probably the best he could do given the circumstances, but I think that the way that he separated the "ki" from the "martial" was a flawed approach.

Actually, Tohei's approach did not take Ki out of his techniques. Granted, he did take Ki to another perspective outside of that, but Ki was always a central focal point with all of his martial techniques. At least that was the way it was when I first trained in the early day's of the Ki society back in the 70s.